Fundamentals
by Ben Jackson
Summary: After a retrieval attempt goes wrong, Sam finds his memories slipping away during a leap.
1. Chapter 1

A/N - Thanks to my Tumblr friend schrodingers-rufus for helping with some of the plot details in this one! Hope you enjoy!

The Control Room at Project Quantum Leap was abuzz with excitement. On a normal day, this room would only be filled by one or two occupants, usually the head programmer Gooshie or Pulse Communications Technician Tina Martinez-O'Farrell, silent save for the smacking of Tina's gum. But today it was packed with staff, at least the staff that was privy to the knowledge of the true nature of the Project, and anxious chatter echoed off the walls. All eyes were on Sammy Jo Fuller, who stood at the massive, multicolored stack of cubes that served as the control panel. Beside her was a hopeful Donna Eleesee-Beckett, and on the other side was Admiral Al Calavicci, adorned in his full dress whites and an unlit cigar gnashed between his teeth.

If this moment weren't so important, Al would have his cigar lit and be halfway done with it by now. But it was imperative that nothing interfere with the equipment, Sammy Jo was adamant about that. Not that Al paid any attention to that particular rule any other time, but he wasn't about to take the risk now, however minimal.

He had debated for a solid half hour whether or not he should wear his whites today, but in the end he'd decided that this was a special occasion and he should pull out all the stops. Besides, when he dressed like an admiral, that evoked in others thoughts of authority and success, and they could use all the successful thoughts they could get today. Because if luck was on their side, today was the day Sam Beckett, the true Sam Beckett, was going to come home.

Sammy Jo had spent six years of sleepless nights working on the retrieval program, and so far they'd come up with nada, zip, zero, zilch. But this time, she'd been absolutely certain she'd made the correct modifications. While most of the Project had gotten ready to break out the champagne, Al remained cautiously optimistic. After all, they'd had disappointments before. But boy, what a wonderful thing it would be if the Waiting Room door opened and Sam finally stumbled out, home at last after his long detour through time. It would be a dream come true.

Sammy Jo tucked a strand of wavy brown hair behind her ear. "Moment of truth, people. Y'all ready?" she asked giddily. Although she was far from the southern town of her roots, there was no mistaking her accent. And Al thought if he squinted one eye, he could see Sam's features in her face, but only he knew that part of her heritage. She might predominantly take after her mother, but that was a Beckett grin for sure. She placed her hand over the control panel and commanded, "Ziggy, prepare the retrieval program."

"Yes, Dr. Fuller," answered the sparkling blue orb above them, Ziggy's "face" for all intents and purposes.

Sammy Jo quickly shook out her arms before replacing them in their original position, blowing out a nervous breath. _Okay, Sammy Jo, think good thoughts_. "Three...two...one...Time to beam him up, Scotty!" she shouted, and her hand slammed down with a flourish.

The room was still with bated breath, all eyes on the Waiting Room door. This was it. It was happening. The moment they'd been waiting for. Six long years. Lights flashing, smoke machine, triumphant choir of angels, the whole she-bang.

Or nothing at all. Someone coughed.

"...is that it?" Al finally inquired.

"Well...maybe?" Sammy Jo answered uncertainly. "I was expecting...more of a show."

"Ziggy?" Donna asked the parallel hybrid computer.

"Yesss?" she responded playfully. This was no time to be coy. Gee, who programmed that into her anyway?

"What's the status on Dr. Beckett?"

"Dr. Beckett has leaped."

Al swore he could've felt a breeze from the entire room getting the wind knocked out of their sails. Well, it looked like they'd come up with bupkis again. Sam wasn't coming home today.

Ziggy had her pride, however, and she wasn't going to be blamed for this one. Not that it mattered what humans thought anyway. "Unfortunately, the retrieval program has failed, obviously through no error of my own. It was a valiant attempt, Dr. Fuller, but I predicted a 67% chance of success."

"I must have missed something...Damn! Oh, sorry!" Sammy Jo immediately apologized to the crowd for her curse. By now, everyone was used to the sound of Al swearing like a sailor almost daily, but she still felt as if she needed to keep some decorum in front of the other staff.

Donna was absolutely heartbroken, but she kept a professional air about her as she addressed the room. "Okay, everyone. Back to work."

"I'm sorry, Donna," Sammy Jo told her, "I really thought I had it this time."

"I know you did." Donna tried to keep blame out of her words. It wasn't too hard after having her hopes shattered several times before. Right now, her focus needed to be on working on the retrieval program again, so she walked away to inspect the equipment. Sammy Jo sighed and leaned on a blue and a pink cube, resting her chin on her hands. An encouraging grip was placed on her shoulder and she glanced up at Al.

"Don't worry about it, kid. You tried your best."

"We'll get him next time," Sammy Jo said, assured of herself, "I'm positive. I just need to rework my calculations..." The gears in her mind already at work, she pulled a clipboard out and began scribbling down notes. No matter what anyone said about her most recent failure, she at least kept up her enthusiasm after all this time. And since she had the same smarts as her father, she was the best bet they had at getting him home.

In the meantime, there was a leap to get to, and Al wordlessly made his way to the Waiting Room to greet their newest guest. Who wasn't Sam. But he could handle it. He could handle anything. And really, he thought he'd managed to stay fairly objective concerning this latest retrieval attempt. Hadn't he? But damn if he didn't have a sinking feeling of discouragement in the pit of his stomach.

They'd get him next time. Right.

Leaping was a surreal sensation that Sam found difficult to describe to anyone who had not experienced it. Which, admittedly, meant everyone throughout history save for a select few. If he had to make an attempt to give someone the feel of what leaping was like, he'd say it was an almost spiritual experience, a weightless, out-of-body state, and yet entirely whole, feeling nothing and everything at the same time. He didn't remember what happened between leaps, but for one glorious instant, he was engulfed in heavenly light and at peace with himself.

Presently, he found himself going from being blinded by the light to being blinded by a geyser of water. Spluttering and coughing, he backed clumsily away and wiped his vision clear. He was in a public bathroom in front of a sink, a sink currently starting a small flood on the floor. So much for a spiritual experience.

In the mirror in front of him, he saw a heavyset man in his 40s, light brown skin, with a thin mustache lining his upper lip. The man frowned at him.

Sam brushed his soaking hair from his forehead and groaned at the mess, ignoring a small headache that was beginning to form behind his eyes. "Oh boy..."

"What do you think you're doing? Taking a vacation?" An angry man in a checkered button-down and huge glasses was in the doorway, staring at the sink in disgust. "Stop the leak before we need to row to get to the stalls!"

"Um, well, I..."

"Use your wrench?" The man pointed at the tool Sam just now noticed was in his hand. "Or are you too stupid to figure out how to use it?"

At this point, Sam looked down to find he was wearing a jumpsuit and came to the conclusion that he must be paid to clean up. If he lost his host's job less than five minutes into the leap, that had to be a record, one he wasn't keen on making. Time to fix that sink. "S-Sorry, sir."

Sam knelt down into the spray of water and twisted at the pipe, stopping the gushing and leaving him in a large puddle on the floor. His uniform was absolutely soaked. "Well...I fixed it," he breathed out through dripping lips.

The man gave him a haughty look. "What, do you want a medal or something? Clean this up!" Rolling his eyes and grumbling something to himself, he left Sam alone.

"You're welcome."

Traveling through time had some perks, but mopping up a public restroom was not one of them. It took a little extra effort for Sam to locate the janitor's closet and find a mop and towels, but now the bathroom floor was dry and Sam was slightly less damp. Although at least part of his sogginess now was due to perspiration, making him sticky on top of that. What an auspicious start to his leap.

The mop now put away, Sam took the opportunity to explore the rest of the building. The hallways were bare, with minimal decoration, but he noticed many posters relating to science and technology. Was he in a school? It didn't have a large student body if it was, because he hadn't seen another soul after the angry man had left the bathroom. But maybe it was after hours.

A nameplate next to one of the doors caught his eye: Dr. Richard Bergman. Wait a minute. That seemed familiar...Sam knew that name from somewhere, but he couldn't quite place it. Curiously, he opened the door.

Turning on the lights, Sam found a room split down the middle. On the one side was a desk and a filing cabinet, and on the other a separate desk with a large, clunky computer atop. His face lit up with nostalgia when he spotted the computer. Wow, that was a trip back! This model was either part of Dr. Bergman's antique collection, or this leap was dated somewhere in the early 70s.

Thank god. It was too early for disco fever.

The computer was left on, and Sam leaned for a closer look. The screen was full of calculations, but they were...wrong. This was all wrong. Sam knew exactly how to correct them, and there the errors were, staring him in the face, taunting him.

Well, _surely_ it wouldn't drastically change history to try and fix them.

Sam had barely begun clacking at the keyboard when he heard a roar behind him. "What the hell do you think you're doing?!"

Uh oh. Sam whirled around to face a short, balding man with a red face. This must be Dr. Bergman. "Oh, I was, uh-" Sam stammered for an appropriate answer, but he was too embarrassed to come up with a good excuse.

"Tell him you were, uh...cleaning the keyboard, Sam."

It took everything Sam had not to jump when he heard Al's voice. He was standing to the balding man's left, plonking at the handlink and smoking a cigar.

"I was, er, cleaning...the keyboard...sir," Sam managed to get out. Even after all these leaps, he was a terrible liar. The man eyed his soggy clothes with suspicion and shoved his way past him toward the computer.

"You shouldn't be messing with things you don't understand," Dr. Bergman muttered, "That's why I specifically asked them to keep you out of my office! I don't want you messing anything up or stealing anything. You're lucky enough we give you people jobs."

"'You people'?" Sam questioned incredulously.

"Watch it, Sam," Al warned, although his acidic tone was directed at the other man, "This nozzle can get you fired, so you gotta play nice."

As Dr. Bergman read the screen, a look of astonishment flickered over his features. Sam's fixes were correct, which of course Sam knew. Yet Bergman wasn't going to give any credit to the man before him, so he put on his poker face. "I suppose I won't report you...but I want you to stay out of this office at all times. Do you understand?" He spoke the last sentence as if Sam were hard of hearing, or hadn't just been speaking English.

Sam swallowed and bit back a sarcastic retort. "I understand."

"Get out."

Sam nodded and exited the room. With a glare, Al tapped the ashes of his cigar at the rude little man before casually walking through the wall to join Sam.

"Can you believe that guy, Al?" Sam asked as he walked down the hallway, shaking his head to try and cool his usually even temper.

"Not that I want to defend the jerk-weasel," Al said, "but you were the one with the loose fingers, Mr. _Nobel Prize_. If a butterfly flapping its wings causes a tornado, what does fiddling with calculations do? Flood the earth? Should I start preparing an ark?"

"You missed the flood earlier," Sam muttered and jerked his thumb in the direction of the bathroom, "Changing a few little things on a computer isn't going to change history _that_ badly, Al." A pause, then sheepishly, "Right?"

Al punched a few buttons on the handlink, whacked it for good measure, and raised a stern eyebrow at Sam. "Lucky for you, no. There are no significant changes in the original history yet." He took a slow drag from his cigar. At first he thought Sam might have swiss cheesed the part of his brain that contained common sense, but then he remembered that Sam was always a little spacey in that department.

Now that he knew he hadn't screwed anything up, Sam again felt justified in his irritation. "So far I've only met two people on this leap, Al, and they've both treated me like I'm a complete idiot! Did I leap into...I mean..." Slightly embarrassed, Sam searched for a polite way to ask. "Is the person I leaped into mentally handicapped?"

Blowing out a puff of smoke, Al shook his head. "No, Sam, no. You're just Puerto Rican."

"Al! Did you really just say that?"

"Put on your listening ears, Sam; I wasn't finished," chided Al, not bothering to look up from the handlink, "As I was _saying_ , you've leaped into Miguel Rivera, age 41, and he's Puerto Rican. See, in 1973-uh, that's the year, by the way-there was still a lot of stigma against Puerto Ricans and other Latinos in the states. After World War II, there was a whole slew of them coming to New York, and that caused overpopulation in the schools for decades. And since a lot of them didn't speak English very well, they were treated like special needs students. Miguel here dropped out of school when he was 15."

"New York? So I'm in New York again?"

"Ah, no, you're in Springfield, Massachusetts," Al read from the tiny screen, jabbing his cigar at the air, "Miguel and his family moved here from New York in the 60s. A lot of Puerto Ricans spread out to the neighboring states, but there were still a lot of the same prejudices. Not to mention, I don't think I need to tell you that you work here in a janitorial capacity, not the most respected of jobs."

Sam frowned. "So is that what I'm here to do? Stop Miguel from being mistreated?"

Sam could be so naive sometimes, Al thought. Eyes hooding over, he answered, "We don't know yet, but I wouldn't bet money on it. It's gonna take more than one leaper to change the world, Sam."

"You can change one man's life," Sam pointed out. He didn't care what Al said, the world changes one person at a time, and if he could make things better for Miguel, he would. He was distracted from his visions of life-altering grandeur when he noticed Al's uniform. "Hey, why are you in your dress whites?"

Without skipping a beat, Al had an impish grin plastered on. "Well, Sam, I have date later with a sweet little lady named Belinda...and the only thing she loves more than a man in uniform is a man _out_ of uniform, if you catch my drift." He waggled his eyebrows and Sam lifted his hand like a big, red stop sign.

"I get the picture, Al, thanks."

"Ooh, I didn't even tell you about her _sister_ -"

"Al, let's leave some mystery between us," Sam pleaded, to which Al responded with a devil-may-care shrug. "What is this place anyway?" Sam asked as he took another look around.

"This place? Oh, this is the Howell Scientific Institute," Al provided, sauntering down the hall and inspecting the posters, "They focus on several branches, but their specialty is computers." Bouncing on the balls of his feet, he regarded the empty hallway with a fond look. "Boy, this takes me back...reminds me of late nights at MIT."

"I went to MIT, didn't I?" Sam asked, his feet squishing as he took a few steps in his friend's direction.

"You sure did, Sam, when you were 16," Al confirmed, "In fact, if you go about a hundred miles thattaway, give or take," he waved to his right, "You'll be able to visit your old dorm! That's where you spent two years with your nose stuck in a book, while other kids your age were getting adults to buy beer for them or becoming familiar with the back seat of a car. I'm pretty sure you were looking up what fun was in the dictionary." He chuckled to himself. He was always the one who found his own jokes the most hilarious.

Sam gave him a scalding glare, which Al would have ignored regardless of being distracted by a leggy woman passing by. He craned his head to admire her assets. " _That_ brings back some fond memories too..."

Initially annoyed, Sam quickly brightened as he was struck with a sudden recollection. "Janice..."

Al spun excitedly to face him, a big, stupid grin on his face. "Jan? You remember Jan? Ohoho, Jan With the Cans! Gee, Sam, that's one I hadn't thought about in a while..."

Sam pursed his lips at the disparaging nickname. "Yeah, I remember _Janice_ ," he emphasized her proper name, "I met her when you took me to that awful pool hall."

"Right," Al continued, "and you acted like you had a stick up your rear the whole time. You get ready to leave, and Jan follows you out and propositions you for a little roll in the hay. Little do you know, she's actually a hooker!"

"I was _mortified_ ," Sam recalled, "And there you are in the door, laughing at me..."

"Well I can't bail you out all the time, kid..."

"But you did!" Sam grinned as he remembered. "A policeman showed up, and you came over claiming to be Janice's father. You said...you said your wife was seriously ill and it would break her heart if her daughter got arrested, and you managed to talk him into letting us off the hook."

Beaming, Al simply shrugged. "Well you had a reputation to protect, you know. Can you imagine what a field day the papers would have? I can just see the headlines now: World Famous Choir Boy Sam Beckett Found in Arms of Lady of the Night."

Despite himself, Sam joined in Al's laughter. "Well you saved Janice too. She was _someone's_ daughter, after all."

"Good old Jan..." Al smirked through the cigar between his teeth as he reminisced.

Normally, Sam would be the first person to say that the truth is always the best course of action, but in that case, he'd make an exception. Regardless of what he thought of Janice's profession, he didn't feel like she needed to be arrested for it. And truthfully, well, he didn't much care to take a tour of a police station either, especially when it had been a misunderstanding on his part. Funnily enough, he noted to himself, nothing this wild ever happened to him before he met Al. But when he was in trouble, his friend had stuck his neck out for him. These days, Al was _still_ getting Sam out of sticky situations, albeit as a far less tangible presence. The more things change, the more they stay the same. That wasn't why this memory was so important to Sam though.

"That's when I knew."

"Knew what?" Al asked as he was pocketing the handlink.

Sam's eyes crinkled with his lopsided grin. "That I could trust you with anything. That's when I decided I would tell you about my string theory."

Taken aback, Al felt suddenly very humbled. "You never told me that, Sam," he said quietly.

Although Al loved to be the life of the party, when it came to attention of a personal nature he always wanted to divert things away from himself. Sam knew that, so he circled around his holographic friend, hands clasped behind him. "That's also why I never went back to a pool hall with you. Besides, you were too good."

Grateful for the segue out of cornball territory, Al slipped back into his comfort zone. "I can't help it if I was trained by the best. I had to do Black Magic proud, and the first rule of pool is, there's no holding back."

"Maybe I'll play you another game sometime," Sam challenged, "now that I've got more experience. Unless...you're afraid you've gotten rusty." His eyes slid nonchalantly to the side.

"Rusty?" echoed Al defensively, "Oho, you're on, Sam. You'd better be ready to get your butt whooped in a few decades!"

"Oh yeah? We'll see who-"

"Oh my god!" Both man and hologram turned to see a Puerto Rican woman rushing toward Sam. She had a slight frame and a heart-shaped face, with lines around her eyes that either came from smiling or worry. Currently, it was from worry. "What happened to your uniform, Miguel? You're all wet!"

Sam stuttered as the woman fussed over him and began speaking in Spanish. As she ran her hands over him, his look over her shoulder begged for Al to give him a clue.

" _Ay dios mio...muy caliente_..." Drooling onto his dress uniform, Al shamelessly let his eyes drift behind her. Sam cleared his throat loudly. "Hm? Oh, you wanna know who she is? Uh..." Taking the handlink out of his pocket, he read the screen, shook it, and ignored the beeps of protest. "This is your wife...Gabriela Rivera, and you've been married for 17 years. Lucky dog..."

Sam pursed his lips at him, which Gabriela mistook as annoyance at her. She slapped his shoulder. "Don't give me that look! You know we can't afford to buy another uniform; you have to take care of this one."

"Sorry, it's just water!" Sam explained, rubbing his shoulder, "Really. There was an accident in the bathroom, but it's fixed now." He flashed one of those Beckett grins that made any woman melt, and Gabriela lightened up. "Wh-What are you doing here?"

The woman looked at Sam as if he'd just spoken in an alien language. "What do you mean, what am I doing here? I'm picking you up, like I do every day."

"Oh, of course!" Rubbing the back of his neck nervously, Sam tried to play it off. "I don't know what I was thinking! It's just been a long day."

Speaking over Gabriela's reply, Al keyed in the sequence for the Imaging Chamber door. "Listen Sam, I'm gonna see if I can speed up Ziggy's prediction on this leap's objective. Try not to have too much fun without me..." Giving Gabriela another appreciative eyeful, he stepped back into the light and left 1973 with a _clunk-shoom_.

Well, Sam had plenty to talk about with his new wife. Er, he knew her name at least.

The drive back home was not as awkward as Sam would have thought. Gabriela had a warm, open personality, but Sam could also see within her a dignified reserve. She was happy to tell him about her day waiting tables, but she was also content to drive in silence and simply enjoy the company of who she thought was her husband. There was an inherent trust there that they didn't need long conversation to communicate, and Sam thought Miguel was lucky to have her.

Their loud, but trusty, old pickup truck pulled up to the house, and Sam was shocked by the state of it. Whereas Gabriela was secure and full of life, their home was the polar opposite, flimsy and run down, with boards in the windows and grass overgrown in the yard. This didn't look like a place _anyone_ should be living in, much less two people.

Make that three. Shortly after they stepped inside, a boy of about 15 squeezed his way past them and made a beeline across the living room.

"Ay! Joseph!" Gabriela shouted to get his attention, "I've made stew for dinner. Aren't you going to join us?" She smiled, hoping to tempt him.

Joseph just gave her a sour look. "I already ate." Ducking his head, his entered his bedroom and shut the door.

Discouraged, Gabriela shook her head and sighed. "I don't know what we're going to do with him."

"Maybe I should go talk to him?" Sam tried, although he knew nothing about this child, who he could only assume was his son, who he'd only just now learned the name of.

"No, let him be by himself," Gabriela said, "He'll come out when he's hungry. Now, I know _you_ are, so get changed and we'll eat." She grinned and headed toward the small kitchen.

Wonderful. Now if only Sam knew where his bedroom was.

There were things Sam could not remember due to the process of leaping, but one thing he knew now was that he loved sancocho stew.

"This is great!" he praised as he took another bite of chicken. His wife was a combination of confused and flattered.

"It's not as if I haven't made it for you before."

"Oh, well...it's extra delicious tonight." He grinned, and she returned the sentiment.

Sam swallowed another spoonful and a comforting warmth slid down his throat and into his stomach. It reminded him of his home in Elk Ridge, Indiana, of his mother cooking for him, of family.

Speaking of, his thoughts drifted back to Joseph. Maybe he was here to fix their relationship with their son, and he wondered what the problem was. Now he just had to find a way to ask about it without sounding clueless.

"I tell ya, Joseph is really missing out," Sam said cheerfully, "Maybe I should go get him?" He started to get up, but Gabriela stopped him.

"You know how he gets after school," she said, "Let him have some time to work it out on his own."

"Well sometimes, these things don't...just work out. Without some guidance, I mean." Sam tried to dance around specifics.

"Children are children, Miguel," Gabriela sighed, "We cannot change how their parents raised them. I'll be happy so long as Joseph graduates, and focuses outside of those who want to be hurtful."

"He's being bullied at school?" Sam frowned, forgetting he was supposed to be aware of this already. Gabriela, however, didn't seem to notice as she started taking empty dishes to the sink. Automatically, Sam began to assist.

"Only for now," she said as Sam handed her a bowl, "Joseph will feel better when he gets older. Just so long as we raise him right." Nodding sagely, she turned on the faucet.

A hot, satisfying stream of water cascaded down upon Sam and he closed his eyes in content. As much as he enjoyed dinner, it was no small relief to finally be rid of the grime from the day. Not to mention, he was getting another headache, and a long, warm shower was just what he needed to relieve the tension.

Over the course of leaping, Sam had come to view bathrooms as a sort of safe haven. It was the one place he was certain he could talk to Al in private (much to his friend's endless complaining), but also one of the few places he could simply be Sam Beckett. There was no front, no illusion, there was simply him, his thoughts, and a brief respite from duty.

Horrifyingly, a pair of arms snaked around his torso. Screaming in surprise, Sam turned around to see Gabriela stepping into the shower with him. Not that she was an unattractive woman, in fact she was gorgeous, but the sight of her naked form in front of him sent Sam into a state of mortified panic. Suds slid from his hair into his eyes, causing him to yell out in pain.

"Miguel!" Gabriela exclaimed, reaching for him, "Are you okay?"

Sam pulled away instinctually as she came into blurry view through his burning eyes. "NO! I mean yes! You just, uh, s-surprised me, is all! I-I-I wasn't expecting you, in here, and..."

Gabriela grinned flirtatiously. "Well, I thought you and I could have some time alone..."

Alarm bells began to ring in Sam's head. This wasn't his wife, and he had no business being naked with her in the shower. He awkwardly avoided looking at her breasts, which only made her confused. "Um, uh, er, um..." This lineup of stuttering lasted a solid thirty seconds, but to Sam it seemed like an eternity.

"Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, everything is-You know what? I'm just really, er, tired, and-Oh! And I have a headache! A-And I just want to go to bed soon." Sam hoped this was a good enough excuse. Plus, the bit about the headache was true, so he wasn't being a complete liar. When she didn't respond quickly enough, he rapidly added, "I-If that's okay with you, heh."

Gabriela looked disappointed, and not any less bewildered, but she chose to trust in her husband. "Alright...I'll keep the bed warm for you then." Staring longingly at him through her long lashes, she kissed him on the cheek, slipped on a robe, and left.

"That was the least sexy shower foreplay I've seen since _Psycho_."

Jumping, Sam turned to see Al standing in the bathroom, adorned in a sparkling black and red jacket, his mouth slanted in piteous disbelief. "A headache, Sam? Really?" Before Sam could come up with a retort, he had stuck his head through the wall to watch Gabriela. "I don't understand you sometimes. How could you pass on a knockout like that?"

"Al!" Sam admonished him, his ears growing hot, "She's not my wife!" Al's dubious flexibility concerning relationships was one of the few things about his friend Sam couldn't quite wrap his mind around.

Al pulled his head back and waved him off. "So? She doesn't know that." He glanced down in amusement, and Sam, realizing he was still naked, flushed red with embarrassment. As he was scrambling to cover himself with a towel, Al rolled his eyes. "It's nothing I haven't seen before, Sam."

Thankfully, those were leaps Sam was hazy on at the moment. Narrowing his eyes at Al, he hissed through his teeth, "Is there a reason you're here, Al?"

"Ah, yes," Al responded absentmindedly. Yet he must not have been in a terrible hurry, because he stuck his head through the wall to become a ghostly peeping tom again.

"Al. I mean, in _here._ "

Pulling back into the bathroom, Al was met with a look that said to either speak up or get the hell out of there. "Right. I'll meet you in the living room." Smirking, he pressed a few handlink buttons and popped out.

While Al waited for the Prudent Prince to make his reappearance, his mouth creased in a frown as he inspected Sam's new digs. "Jeez, what a dive. I've seen homeless people living in better conditions." Come to think of it, he'd _been_ one of those people. Briefly, he recalled the days of his youth when he'd run away from the orphanage and had to fend for himself. Some of his best and worst childhood memories came from those runaway attempts.

A quiet, raspy meow came from below him. At his feet sat a scrappy gray cat with crooked whiskers and long, unkempt fur. He thought cats were supposed to be able to take care of themselves, but this one could do with a good groomer. The animal had definitely seen better days.

Al wasn't much of a cat person. They always acted like you had to _prove_ yourself to them, and they got their fur on expensive new suits. He had once had a fling with a woman who owned six cats, and by the time he'd collected his clothes from the floor in the morning he'd come away looking like a colorful Cousin It.

The mangy cat before him made an attempt to swipe at the wingtips of his fire engine red shoes. Although he was holographic and almost thirty years in the future, it was the _principle_ of it that insulted him.

"Hey, you'd better watch it, furball," Al warned in a low voice, "These shoes cost more than you're worth."

"What's the matter, Al? Are you being bullied?"

Sam had a humored grin on his face as he sat down on the creaky couch, and the cat eagerly hopped onto his lap and started kneading at his ugly green robe. As Sam began to stroke him under the chin, the feline eagerly leaned into his large, comforting hand, evidently deciding that this human was okay by him. "Hey, he kind of looks like you," Sam noted to Al with a smirk.

Al narrowed his eyes at him and gave a humorless laugh. Smart ass. Sam's observation was cemented, however, when the cat gave another gravelly meow and stared at Al through half-closed eyes, an eerie imitation of the admiral's current expression. Clearing his throat, Al turned away and pretended not to notice.

"What do we call you, anyway?" Sam asked, freeing the cat's tag from the long fur around his neck. "'Schroder'?" he read.

"Doesn't look like a Schroder. More like a...Box Wetter or...Rug Replacement..." Al eyed the cat with distaste as he puffed on his cigar.

"Huh. Sounds kind of like Schrodinger," Sam commented with amusement.

"Who?"

"Oh come on, Schrodinger's cat?" Sam said, as if the connection were obvious. Al gave him a blank stare. "A cat is locked in a steel box with hydrocyanic acid, and if it leaks then the cat is killed?" Evidently, that didn't jog Al's memory, and Sam tried to explain further. "You know, superposition. Since we can't know the condition of the cat until the box is opened, we have to assume it's alive _and_ dead, until the observation creates the outcome."

At this, Al scratched his temple in bafflement. "Huh? Why the hell would this Schrodinger guy want to put his cat in a steel chamber?"

Sometimes, Sam forgot that other people weren't in his head. Much of his life had been spent several steps in front of the people around him, a frustrating issue which usually resulted in having to slow down to let everyone else catch up. "The cat isn't real, Al. It's an example meant to simplify a principle of quantum physics."

"That doesn't seem simple at all," Al griped, more confused than ever.

"Never mind," Sam sighed, resigned to being the lone person to understand his reference. He scratched at Schroder's ears and the feline purred happily.

"Oh! Sam, we, uh, found out what you need to do to leap," Al said, suddenly remembering why he'd come here in the first place.

"What've you got?"

"Ziggy calculates there's an 82% chance you're here to help do. Do?" He smacked the handlink. "Doctor. Oh! Doctor. Doctor Richard Bergman, the slimeball you met earlier, and a..." He smacked the handlink and squinted at the small lettering. "...Dr. Charles Gregory. He's-"

"I know who that is!" Sam said with a thrill. He closed his eyes, pulling at a fuzzy memory, "Wait, hang on, I remember, he...he worked with microchips, didn't he?"

"That's right, Sam, and-"

"And, and he had a theory about mixing microchips with organic material!" Sam blurted out eagerly, standing up. A miffed Schroder fell unceremoniously to the floor. "His ideas were the foundation of my work on Ziggy. He inspired me to use living tissue- _our_ tissue-to create a new type of computer, one that could use human reasoning! He was brilliant!"

"Why don't _you_ just tell it then?" Al complained dryly, but Sam was too enthused to pay him any attention.

"Gosh, Al, I would've loved to work with him, but he..." Sam frowned. "Something happened to him." He couldn't remember what, but he knew it was something awful.

Nodding solemnly, Al filled in the blanks. "Yeah, something happened to him. Three days from now, on April 3rd, 1973, he gets killed in a fire at the Howell Scientific Institute."


	2. Chapter 2

"A fire?" Sam repeated.

Al nodded. "Happened around 5:45 pm. The only people still in the building were Miguel, Dr. Gregory, and Dr. Bergman."

"That's why his name sounded so familiar," said Sam, "I remember hearing about it; Dr. Bergman survived that fire."

"He did, but...ick," Al recoiled from the handlink as he read the news, "He suffered third degree burns over 60% of his body. He retired from the institute and became a recluse after that. Miguel wasn't injured; he got out of the building early."

Deep in thought, Sam bit his lip and questioned, "What caused the fire?"

"According to the police report, it was inconclusive," explained Al, "The guess was that it was due to faulty wiring. Lots of buildings in the 60s and 70s used aluminum instead of copper because it was cheaper, but it wasn't necessarily safer."

"How do I stop the fire then?"

"Easy, you check the circuit breaker. If you find anything suspicious, you get them to call in an electrician. You've got a few days, Sam, so this should be a piece of cake."

Sam nodded as the plan started coming together in his head, his enthusiasm returning when he thought of his sudden opportunity. "I'd still have time to meet Dr. Gregory then. I'd love to be able to discuss his theories with him."

Immediately, Al made to head this train of thought off at the pass, making an x with his hands. "No, Sam, stop right there. You're supposed to be Miguel Rivera. You're a janitor with only a tenth grade education; you don't know anything about computers or organic microchips. You could compromise the entire leap!"

"But I have so much I could learn from him, Al!" Sam argued, "If he hadn't died, he could have changed the world."

"And if you fix history, he still might," Al reminded him, then he had to point out, "Sam, you're missing the best part...If you save Dr. Gregory and he has a chance to continue with his work, he could advance your progress with Ziggy by almost 20 years!"

Sam's eyes widened as the realization dawned on him. "If that happens...she could figure out how to fix the retrieval program!"

"Bingo!" Al exclaimed with a delighted point in his friend's direction.

"I could be home..." Sam said longingly, staring at the wall. He'd spent too long, longer than he could remember, trapped in time...and this could be his answer. Could he really hug his loved ones again, wake up in his own bed, see his own reflection? All he had to do was what was predisposed in him anyway. Two lives had been ruined in that fire, and one life tragically cut short, and Sam would have saved them regardless of how it personally affected him. But to be offered a reward this time...it seemed too good to be true.

"Babe, are you coming to bed?"

Gabriela stood in the doorway to their bedroom in a sheer nightgown. Al's jaw nearly hit the floor, and Sam protectively stepped in between them to stop his friend's ogling. "Coming in a minute," he said through a forced smile. She gave him a come-hither stare and went back inside.

"I've never met a bigger bluenose in all my life; what a waste," Al groused, shaking his head and opening the Chamber door, "Keep the objective in mind, Sam. Oh, and, uh...don't do anything I wouldn't do." He gave a cheeky grin and shut the door.

That narrowed things down. If there was something Al wouldn't do, Sam hadn't heard about it yet.

This headache was nothing if not persistent. It was still there by the next day, nagging at the back of Sam's brain, and that made otherwise tedious work seem like even more of slog. Since Sam was a janitor and not an electrician, he wasn't sure how kindly the institute would look on him inspecting the building's wiring, so he decided to wait until the end of the day when there were less eyes on him.

Not that he ran into much issue when the building was busier. In contrast to the empty evening before, hundreds of people passed by Sam today, but as far as most of them were concerned, he didn't exist. Occasionally, he was acknowledged with a snide look, or a lame joke about how he missed a spot. That one never got old.

Sam's mind thirsted for more stimulating activity, so he kept himself busy by mentally repeating various principles of quantum physics, the periodic table of elements, all the bones located in the foot, the composition of Rachmaninoff's Sonata No. 2, anything to keep his synapses firing. Unfortunately, that only seemed to make his headache worse, but he'd take the annoyance over boredom.

Growing up on a farm, Sam's family had found it difficult to keep him busy intellectually. He read voraciously, but he was gifted and cursed with a photographic memory, which meant he had no need to read anything a second time. Obsessing over the how and why of things, he took apart and rebuilt everything he could get his hands on, then started the process all over again. Luckily, he was blessed with a family with a great deal of patience. They were extremely supportive of all his endeavors, but the simple fact was, he was still living in...What town was it again? Well. He must have swiss cheesed it. But wherever it was, he outgrew it. Still, a part of him would always be there, with his loving parents, his sister Katie, and...there was someone else. Wasn't there?

He was jolted away from the farm when he saw a familiar face walking past him and felt a rush of giddiness. Sure, he'd had this conversation with Al, but he'd never technically promised he _wouldn't_ speak to Dr. Gregory. And for the second time this leap, he acted on impulse.

"Dr. Gregory!"

The man stopped and turned to face him. He had slightly askew salt-and-pepper hair and a full mustache, and he was wearing a suit in some hideous variation of brown plaid.

"Yes? Can I help you?"

To his own surprise, Sam was slightly star struck, and he was tongue-tied for a moment. "Oh! S-Sorry, uh, my name is Sam-I mean Miguel, Miguel Rivera. I just wanted to say I'm a big fan of your work."

" _You_ follow my work?" Dr. Gregory asked skeptically.

"Oh yes, your theory on biological microchips is truly inspired," Sam gushed, a big grin on his face, "In fact, I predict we'll have the first integration of organic material in a computer in...oh, less than 20 years."

Dr. Gregory's dumbfounded look melted into pleasant surprise. "I see. I wasn't aware many people took my paper on the subject seriously...Truthfully, a lot of people seem to think it's too out there."

"It's not too out there, sir," Sam said, nodding happily, "I think you're onto something."

"Well...Miguel," started Dr. Gregory, flattered, "If you ever want to discuss it sometime, visit my office after hours. I'm always working late."

"Really? That'd be wonderful! Thank you!"

"Keep up the good work." The other man nodded politely and left.

Sam bit his lip to hold his excitement in. If this was going to be his last leap, he was going out on a very good note.

With a new song in his heart, Sam whistled as he opened up the circuit breaker in the basement and shined a flashlight at the wiring. He'd left the lights out to avoid being followed, and this was his only light source. What was it Al had said to check for? Copper, no...aluminum wiring. That was it.

The wiring was copper, and nearly brand new, and everything was attached to the correct voltage. Overall, it passed any inspection Sam could give. Strange. Nothing he saw indicated faulty wiring...but then again, that was just a guess, so any number of things could have happened. Suddenly feeling a little less cheerful, Sam realized he was back to square one.

So what caused the fire? He'd have to ask Al to try and locate the specific location where it started. Maybe he could see another hazard no one else had noticed.

In response to the yell of frustration he'd just heard, Sam rapped gently on the door to Joseph's bedroom before sticking his head inside. Joseph sat at a flimsy desk with a textbook opened and crumpled paper around him. He angrily tossed his pencil to the ground.

"What'd that pencil ever do to you?" asked Sam with a small grin, attempting to lighten up the situation.

Joseph glowered at him. "Great joke, Dad."

Chuckling, Sam made his way over. "Alright, what seems to be the problem?"

"It's this geometry stuff...it's too hard!"

"Well maybe I can help."

From the look Joseph was giving him, apparently Miguel didn't make this offer very often. "Eh...I don't know, Dad. It's difficult. I don't think you'd get it."

"You'd be surprised," Sam said knowingly, "Come on. At least let me take a look?"

Reluctantly, Joseph handed the textbook to Sam. While he knew now that his objective was to stop the fire, it wouldn't hurt to help Miguel's son in school. And he could do geometry in his sleep, so this would be child's play.

Except, nothing on this page made sense to him. Thinking he'd landed on a weird section of the book, he flipped through the other pages to find that nothing else made any sense either. But he knew this, it was incredibly easy, so why couldn't he make heads or tails of what any of it was?

Furrowing his brows, he checked the cover. "Um...a-are you sure this is your school book?"

"See? I told you!" Joseph angrily snatched the book away and tossed it aside, where it hit the lamp and knocked it off the table. "You don't get it, and _I'll_ never get it! I'm just going to end up like you, so what's the point?" Without another word, he stomped out of the room.

"Joseph! Wait!" Sam called, but he didn't try to go after him. He was too thrown by what had just happened.

Over the course of leaping, Sam had swiss cheesed many important things from his mind, but this was the first time he could recall blanking out math entirely. Not to mention, when he really needed to remember something to complete a leap, it came back to him, but this time nothing on those pages seemed familiar. And frankly, it was embarrassing to think he'd been bested by a tenth grade textbook. A memory full of holes was one of the many perks of time travel he wouldn't miss.

"Yikes! What happened in here?" Now Al was in the room, feigning walking over the items on the messy floor despite being able to simply walk through them. To be honest, most of the mess was due to Joseph's lack of cleanliness and not his recent venting.

Full of awe, Sam had to stare at Al's suit. Somehow, he'd managed to top himself with this one, because it was the wildest getup he could remember seeing him in. From the bottom to the top: he had on a pair of bright yellow shoes, pressed periwinkle pants, and a suit jacket printed like clouds, overlaying a multicolored button-down and a shiny orange tie. A tiny pair of white rimmed sunglasses were pinned lovingly to the tie, finishing off the entire outlandish ensemble. The blocks of color in the shirt reminded Sam of something, he wasn't sure what, a noisy something with blinking lights.

"What are you wearing?" Sam inquired incredulously.

"What? Oh, this?" Al bounced on the balls of his feet and tugged at his lapels proudly. "Just got it last week. You like?"

"Not at all."

"Well that's because you have no taste." Not bothered in the slightest, Al smirked and started wandering the room. "How'd it go at the institute?"

"I don't think the fire was caused by the wiring, everything was brand new," Sam said, "Can you have Ziggy see if she can find out where it originated in the building?"

"You got it."

 _Blip, plop, plink._

Say, _that's_ what his shirt had reminded him of. How could he forget what the handlink looked like? As Al was fighting with the noisy contraption, Sam rubbed at his temples. Al glanced up.

"Your head still bothering you?"

"Yeah, but it's not too bad," Sam assured him. It was more annoying than anything.

"You know, Sam, Gabriela's not around. You don't have to keep faking those," said Al facetiously.

"Very funny, Al."

The handlink bleeped. "Ah, no go on the origin of the fire, Sam. Ziggy says she's going to need more time."

"Okay...Hey, while you've got that out, can you tell me what happens to Joseph Rivera?"

"Joseph?"

"Yeah, he's my-Miguel's son."

Al nodded and put in the information. "Joseph Rivera...Ah, here we go! Uh oh. It doesn't look good, Sam."

"Why? What happens?" Sam asked, concerned.

Al finished reading and sighed, glancing at the wall. "He drops out of school when he's 15, and three years after that, he's...stabbed to death in a gang fight."

"Oh no. Al, he's 15 now!" Sam's heart ached. How could someone so young be dead in three years? "We have to help him."

"No kidding," Al agreed, "In fact, now that you've brought it up, Ziggy says that's your second objective this leap. She says if you can get Joseph to stay in school, he won't join a gang and get killed."

Sam nodded as he heard a raspy meow at his feet, a small smile creeping up on his face. "Well hi there." He scooped up the cat in his arms, and the feline settled down in content. Al rolled his eyes at the disgusting display.

"That thing probably has rabies, Sam."

Chuckling at Al's discontent, Sam dipped his head to read the cat's collar. "'Schroder.' Huh. Sounds kind of like Schrodinger," he observed humorously, and looked back up at his friend.

Al wasn't laughing. In fact, he seemed mystified.

"Oh come on, Schrodinger's cat?" Sam tried to clarify, "A cat is locked in a steel box with-"

"Acid. Right. Superposition."

"Right!" exclaimed Sam, happy that he got the reference. But Al didn't have a trace of amusement on his face. To Sam's puzzlement, his friend was scrutinizing him like he was a specimen under a microscope. His grin slowly faded. "Okay, so admittedly it wasn't a great joke..."

"Heh."

"Al?"

"Uh, listen, Sam," Al said, opening the Imaging Chamber door, "I'm going to kick Ziggy into gear looking for where the fire originated. In the meantime, you work with Joseph. I'll see you later, okay?"

"Sure, but-"

 _Clunk-shoom._

Sam didn't like the tone of Al's voice nor his hasty exit, because that usually meant he was hiding something. Hopefully it wasn't something bad about this leap. With a guilty conscience, he hoped talking to Dr. Gregory hadn't changed history for the worse.

Hey, when did a cat get in here?

"Ziggy?"

"Yes, Admiral?" came the computer's sultry tones.

"Run another scan of Sam's brainwaves, will ya?"

If he didn't know any better, Al could've sworn he heard her give a haughty sniff. "Admiral, I must remind you that I do a thorough scan of Dr. Beckett's brainwaves at the start of every leap."

"Humor me."

"I am not programmed for humor," she said patronizingly, "but I'm more than capable of running another scan."

For a computer that wasn't programmed with a sense of humor, she sure had a talent for being a wiseass. Still, she'd complied with his orders with minimal complaint, and that was pretty good for Ziggy. Sam was always her favorite, and she reveled in giving Al a hard time. Sometimes that bucket of bolts infuriated him. Prior to working at the Project, he was used to dealing with Navy personnel who asked him how high when he told them to jump, not parallel hybrid computers with huge egos. After he'd started working with Miss High and Mighty, his temples had gone gray.

He was worried about Sam. The way he'd looked when he talked about that cat scared the hell out of him, like they'd never even had that conversation. By now, Al was used to having to remind Sam about things he'd forgotten, within reason of following Sam's rules of leaping. Sometimes it was something little, like who the Beatles were, sometimes it was something bigger, like his age. Occasionally, he'd forget Al's name. But swiss cheesed or not, Sam still had a photographic memory, so once he remembered something on a leap, he didn't forget it. This was the first time Al had ever seen Sam swiss cheese something _after_ the leap in.

"The scan of Dr. Beckett's brainwaves is complete."

"And?"

"There are some...anomalies."

"Anomalies?" Al didn't like the sound of that. "What kind of anomalies?"

"Compared to the previous scan of Dr. Beckett's brainwaves, there is a decrease in the number of neurons and mesons."

"How the hell did that happen?" Al asked with alarm. The question was as much directed at himself as it was directed at Ziggy.

"I don't have an answer at this time. Check back in 26 hours and 14 minutes."

"26 hours?!" Al shouted in astonishment. He had a suspicion Ziggy just made up random times for her calculations.

"I'm a computer, not a saint," the egotistical pile of microchips drawled, "Don't expect me to work miracles."

"Not programmed with a sense of humor, my ass," Al muttered, then more loudly, "So what does all of this mean? Can Sam still complete the leap?"

"Certainly, Admiral. The amount of neurons and mesons may be less than the start of the leap, which accounts for his recent memory loss, but it is still a typical amount for Dr. Beckett's post-leap brain."

Al blew out a breath. At least _that_ was a relief. There still remained the question of what caused Sam to lose those neurons and mesons in the first place, and if it was a side effect of something bigger.

"Ziggy, I want you to run a new scan on Sam's brainwaves every hour," he ordered, "Meanwhile, I want you to keep looking into any possibilities as to what caused him to lose his memories."

"You didn't say the magic word, Admiral."

"What?!"

"In polite conversation, I believe the magic word is 'please,'" Ziggy said sweetly.

A vein popped out on Al's forehead. " _Please_ run the scans and come up with some scenarios for me, or I'll pull your plug!"

"There's no need to be rude."

Ziggy went silent and Al shook his head. One of these days, that computer was going to make him burst a blood vessel. He stomped his way to the door, nearly slamming his nose into it when it stayed shut. "Ziggy?" he called out angrily as he rubbed his tender nose.

Silence.

"Ziggy, open the door!"

The door remained still, Ziggy's cheeky way of getting revenge for Al's threats. Maybe it would've been better for him to swallow his pride, but no damn inanimate object was going to give him orders.

Still, this room seemed to be getting smaller and smaller. Were it not for his increasing sense of panic, he would have remembered the override code he could've entered into the handlink.

"Okay Ziggy, I'm sorry! Please open the door!"

The door slid open, and he rushed outside with a breath of relief. He was sure Queen Ziggy was laughing to herself.

Briefly, he considered following through with his threats.

Hydrogen. Helium. Lithium. Beryllium.

 _Sweep._

Boron. Carbon...Nitrogen...

 _Sweep._

...Oxygen...Fluorine...

...Neon...

 _Sweep._

...Sodium...and...

 _Sweep._

...and...and...

 _Sweep._

...and...Damn!

Sam couldn't remember what came next. And forcing it just made his head hurt more. He continued to sweep the hallway and abandoned his attempt to recall the periodic table of elements.

He thought of how he was going to convince Joseph to stay in school. If he was able to show him that he could do anything if he applied himself, he figured he'd be able to get him on the right track. It didn't seem as if Joseph wasn't trying; maybe he just hadn't found the right way to learn. All Sam had to do was simplify it.

Problem was, he wasn't sure if he could understand it himself.

More and more this leap, he was feeling as if he didn't know anything at all. When he was growing up, whatever the subject was, it came to him very easily. When he was 2 he could already read, and by 5 he was solving advanced calculus problems in his head. He went to MIT when he was 16 and went on to get seven degrees, not to mention win a Nobel Prize, and his IQ was 267. Never in his life had he ever felt stupid.

Until now.

Sam was not a prideful person, but he'd be lying if he said this recent turn of events didn't sting. All of his life was spent discovering and pioneering, a child prodigy to the next Einstein, and now...now he felt like...like everyone else.

Had he ever been just like everyone else?

He wasn't sure why he was so swiss cheesed this leap, but maybe he needed to relearn some of this himself. He had a photographic memory, after all. He'd just have to build up from the fundamentals.

Swiss cheesed or not, Sam couldn't hide his eagerness to speak with Dr. Gregory about his theories. Since he had no circuit breakers to check today, he had a small amount of time before Gabriela picked him up to take Dr. Gregory's offer, and so now he knocked on the door to his office.

"Yes, who is it?"

Sam opened the door. "It's Miguel, sir."

"Oh yes, I remember you!" the man said happily, "And Dr. Gregory is fine. Please, come in."

"Thanks."

Sam stepped inside and took a seat in the chair Dr. Gregory gestured to. The other man took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, sighing, "It's been a long day and I've had my eyes glued to a computer screen for hours. I could use a break."

"I know how that goes," Sam remarked offhandedly.

"Have you worked with a lot of computers?"

Sam smirked to himself. If he only knew. "Oh yes, quite a few. You were one of my inspirations for my own computer, actually."

"Oh really?" Dr. Gregory seemed very interested, and he folded his hands on top of the desk. Sam shifted in his seat, realizing just now that he might reveal too much about the future if he wasn't careful.

"I mean, uh, for a computer I _want_ to make," Sam said, "You see, I think putting biological tissue in a microchip can lead to an advanced computer that uses human reasoning."

Dr. Gregory's face lit up. "A computer with human reasoning...that's fascinating! I believe, if we can figure out how to merge human tissue with the transistors and resistors of the microchip, we'll be creating the future. And something like what you're describing could be one of many possibilities..." He scratched his chin and Sam could see his mind working in fervent thought. "I'm curious; would you like to see some of my schematics?"

"Oh boy, would I!" Sam said through the dumb smile on his face. He was awestruck that he would be privileged enough to see something previously lost in the fire, the work that led down the road to Ziggy. No one had seen any of these since 1973...the first 1973, that is. Dr. Gregory opened his filing cabinet and pulled out some diagrams, laying them out on the desk before Sam.

"Of course none of this has been tested yet," Dr. Gregory clarified, "Some of this technology is ahead of our time, I think, but sometimes you have to wait for the world to catch up. But who knows? If I can secure that grant I'm in the running for, it just might be a possibility that much sooner!" He smiled enthusiastically as he waited for Sam's reaction.

Sam was staring at the diagrams, brows furrowed, as he tried to decipher all of the components.

Now he was starting to really be concerned. Because this, _this_ he knew when the leap had started, he was sure of it. But now he _didn't_ know. Now, all he could see in these diagrams were complicated looking pictures with alien words and foreign-looking designs. How could that happen? Whatever punched holes in his memory between leaps didn't keep going _after_ he'd landed in someone else's life. But he was absolutely certain that he'd have understood these schematics when he'd first leaped in. He was sure most of it wasn't even that complicated; he'd probably learned about similar things when he'd gone to...wherever he went to school. He'd known that too. Hadn't he?

Oh god. Maybe this was like when he'd psychosynergized with Lee Harvey Oswald, and he was forgetting who he was and becoming Miguel. But he didn't _feel_ like Miguel...he wasn't sure who he felt like.

He was _not_ Miguel Rivera. He was Sam...Sam what?

What was his last name?

Panic started to well up inside his chest. Something was very wrong.

This sudden shift in Sam's mood didn't go unnoticed by Dr. Gregory, who mistook it for being in over his head. He began to fold up the schematics. "Well, it is a bit complicated." He smiled politely, but Sam could tell he thought he'd been exaggerating his knowledge on the subject. He supposed he unknowingly had.

"I have to go," Sam said suddenly, hurrying toward the door, "Th-Thank you for the chat."

Before Dr. Gregory could say anything further, Sam was gone.

"Slow down, Sam, where's the fire?" Sam stopped and faced Al, who stood waiting for him in the empty hallway. "Whoops! Forget I used that phrase," his friend grimaced.

"I just might," said Sam with worry, "Al, what's my last name?"

Al froze. "You don't remember?"

Sam shook his head and tried to hold himself together, but he couldn't shed this overwhelming fear that was overtaking him. "Al, something's wrong with me."

"What do you mean?" Al asked as he scratched at his ear, pretending to know less than he did.

"I'm forgetting things, Al, things I knew when this leap started...When I looked at Joseph's geometry book, I didn't understand any of it. I can't remember where I went to school or where I grew up, or...Please, can you just tell me my last name?" Sam was nearly hyperventilating as he begged Al for the answer.

Trying to keep control of the situation, Al raised his hands defensively. "Okay okay, take it easy, Sam. It's Beckett. Your last name is Beckett."

Beckett. Was that really it? It sounded so strange.

"Now look," Al continued, "I want you to take a deep breath and stop panicking. This isn't the first time a leap's eaten up some of your memories, remember?" He bit his lip in second thought. "Uh, no, I guess you wouldn't"

"Yes, but not after a leap has started."

Al shrugged a single shoulder. "It's probably just some fluke. You swiss cheese things all the time, Sam."

There Al was in denial again. Head cocked in frustration, Sam looked him straight in the eye and asked, "When's the last time you had to remind me of my own last name?"

The first time Sam forgot his name, it was his first leap. One of the worst moments in Al's life had been when he'd discovered his best friend had forgotten him.

Beyond that first leap where he forgot nearly everything, the only times he forgot his name were when he was in dire straits. Like when he was magnafoozled, or one of his worst leaps, where he'd received electroshock treatment and become several other people. If there was one thing Al dreaded, it was hearing that question, because that always meant Trouble with a capital T.

Sam might have forgotten his name, but he didn't seem to be psychosynergizing with Miguel, which was the good news. The bad news was, Al still had no clue, nada, zip, zero, zilch, as to what was actually going on.

"Sam, tell me what the four fundamental forces of interactions in quantum physics are," he tried. Sam remained silent. "What's the Pauli exclusion principle?" Nothing. Al rubbed the side of his face. "Okay, uh...tell me about your string theory."

Sam shook his head. "Al, I don't know!"

"Fine, let's try something simpler, like...oh! Tell me about your family."

His family...wait, he knew his family! Sam felt a little more encouraged as he recalled what he could about them. "My mother is Thelma Louise, my father is...John, and my sister...her name is Katie!" He gave a small smile. He at least remembered that. If nothing else, he had his family.

"And your brother?"

Sam felt a cold chill run up his spine. "...brother?"

Al had to take a moment to gauge whether or not Sam was being serious, even though he was certain his friend wouldn't joke about something like this. Sam was looking at him with such fear behind his eyes; he genuinely did not even know he had a brother. Al kept on his best poker face, but internally, he was in crisis mode. He had no idea things had gotten this bad. Tom meant the world to Sam, and if he was given a reminder and he was still drawing a blank, this was no normal swiss cheesing. Something rotten was going on here, and Al was going to find out what.

"Al?" Sam looked at his silent friend pleadingly. "What's happening to me?"

"I don't know," admitted Al, but he assured him, "But don't worry! I've got your back. Ziggy and I will get to the bottom of this, so you just hang tight." His friend didn't seem any more at ease. Al leaned his head in toward Sam's downcast expression. "Alright?"

Sam swallowed and said quietly, "Alright."

The Imaging Chamber door slid open behind Al. "I'll be back with an update before you know it." The door closed, Al disappeared, and Sam was alone once again. Or so he thought.

"Miguel."

He was startled by the sound of Gabriela's voice. "Oh! I didn't see you there..." Gabriela's mouth was a hard line, and Sam frowned. "Is everything okay?"

"It's Joseph."

Uh-oh. Had he changed history already?

"Ziggy, what's the progress on those brain scans?" Al barked at the ceiling of the Imaging Chamber.

"There is a continuing decrease in Dr. Beckett's neurons and mesons, Admiral."

Damn. Damn damn damn. Al knitted his brows together in thought. "So what does that mean, he's just going to keep forgetting things?"

"At the current rate of deterioration, I calculate with 86% certainty that Dr. Beckett will experience complete amnesia within 24 hours."

"Holy moly..." Al smacked his hand to his forehead. Complete amnesia? 24 hours? This was a lot worse than he was expecting! Sam was in real trouble now. If he couldn't remember anything, how was he going to complete the leap? What were they going to do?

No sooner had those thoughts crossed his mind when the door slid open. Wait a second, no one but Al came into the Imaging Chamber, unless—

"Al!"

Donna came storming inside, an inescapable force of fury. In his decades of service, Al had made many men cower in fear by the mere sound of his voice, but now he seemed to shrink in the presence of the woman before him.

"You mind telling me the hell is going on with my husband?"


	3. Chapter 3

Thankfully, Sam had not changed history yet. Unfortunately, history had still gone poorly.

Joseph had been in an altercation at school, and Sam and Gabriela were asked to meet with the principal after hours. Now Sam and his new wife sat before the woman in a thick cardigan, with Sam strongly resisting the urge to twiddle his thumbs nervously. He'd never been sent to the principal's office in his life...at least, he thought he hadn't. Maybe he forgot that too. He couldn't think about it too much or he'd start to panic again, not to mention agitate his steadily worsening headache.

The principal's name was Mrs. Agatha Wood, according to her nameplate. She extended her hand to Sam and Gabriela as they exchanged greetings. "Thank you for taking the time to meet with me, Mr. and Mrs. Rivera. As you might have been told over the phone, your son Joseph was in an altercation with another student today."

"Yes, and we're so sorry!" Gabriela apologized profusely, "Was the student hurt?"

"Thankfully the injuries were nothing serious, just a few scrapes," Mrs. Wood explained, "but they did have to be pulled apart to stop them from continuing to hit each other."

Gabriela's hand flew to her mouth. "Oh my god! What happened?"

"Well, according to the other student, Joseph simply...snapped and started attacking him."

Sam frowned. "He just snapped?"

"Yes," Mrs. Wood replied as if he'd asked a stupid question, "That's what I said. The other student has decided not to press charges, but frankly, I'm beginning to feel like perhaps the two of you should withdraw Joseph from our school."

"Withdraw him?" Gabriela gasped, "But this is the only public school in our district!"

"To be completely honest, Mrs. Rivera, your son doesn't exactly fit in around here," the principal said, faking concern, "He's always had trouble keeping up his grades, and he's constantly getting in fights with the other students."

Something didn't sit right with Sam. The way this woman held herself, her manner of speech, the way she looked when speaking about Joseph...it all came off very suspicious.

"If he just snapped, like you said, then why didn't you expel him?"

"Well, Mr. Rivera," Mrs. Wood said huffily, straightening her desk, "I'm sure you don't want that on his record, or the humiliation of having your son kicked out of school."

"Or maybe this other student could get in a lot of trouble if the other side of the story came out," Sam accused.

"What are you implying, Mr. Rivera?"

"People don't just snap and attack someone," Sam said sternly, "There had to've been a reason. We know the other students like to start fights with Joseph, and maybe this latest time it went too far. But you can't keep Joseph from going to school here without an adequate reason. He has as much of a right to an education as anyone else. And if I were you, Mrs. Wood, I would be having a discussion with the parents of this other student as well."

As Sam got to his feet, he stopped to add, "And since we're being so honest, I wouldn't mind making the news public if my son was kicked out of this school for unjust reasons. In fact, I think the papers would be very interested in a story like that."

The principal was flabbergasted and unable to speak any further as Sam started for the door, a shocked Gabriela in tow. However, Sam had one last word before to say before they left. "Joseph will be back in class tomorrow. Have a nice day, Mrs. Wood." With a forced smile, Sam opened the door for Gabriela and made his leave.

As they left the office, Gabriela put a hand on Sam's arm to stop him. "Miguel, I've never seen you like that..."

Blushing, Sam pulled his hand away and placed it to his aching temple. "Oh. I'm sorry if I embarrassed you, I just-"

"No. I'm proud of you, baby. You were so brave." Gabriela smiled and, before he had time to react, she'd planted her lips firmly over his. She felt so soft, so comforting, so...not his. This was wrong. He gently pulled away.

"Ummm...can I speak to Joseph alone?" He glanced toward Joseph, who sat a little down the hall with his arms folded and waited for them. It may have been an excuse to pull away, but he really did want to talk to him.

"Sure. I'll wait in the car."

Sam was sure this was it. This must have been the moment Joseph dropped out of school and headed down the road toward his untimely death. He'd gotten the school to keep him, now he just needed to convince Joseph himself. Silently, he sat down on the bench next to his son and clasped his hands on his lap.

Joseph's eyes slid in his direction. "Are they going to kick me out of school?"

"Nope."

"Why not?" Joseph asked in surprise.

"Because I know, and they know, that the other kid started it," Sam said, "Now you want to tell me what happened?"

Joseph's face hardened and he looked away again. He must have been hoping Sam would give up and take him home, but Sam waited patiently for him to explain. "...He called me stupid. He said our family should go back to Puerto Rico, that we're too lazy and poor to contribute anything to society. So...I said he was fat, and he shoved me, and I hit him...and we fought."

"You know it was wrong to call him fat, don't you?"

"But, Dad, he said-"

"It doesn't matter what he said, Joseph," Sam cut him off, "When you see him tomorrow, I want you to apologize to him." Joseph let out a whine and slumped against the wall. Sam continued, "It doesn't matter that he shoved you first. When someone treats you unfairly, you have to be better than that. And you are. Right?"

"Right," Joseph answered softly, hanging his head in shame.

"Good. Now I want you to listen to me." Sam placed his hand on his shoulder, making sure he was paying attention. "You're not stupid. You can do anything you want to do, no matter who your family is, the color of your skin, how much money you have, or what someone else says about you. Just because someone else thinks it doesn't make it true."

Joseph nodded quietly, staring at his hands.

"You aren't stupid because someone else says it. Right?"

Joseph looked up and nodded. "Right."

"So don't give up on yourself just yet." In response to that, Joseph gave him a small smile. It wasn't much, but it was something. Sam patted him on the back comfortingly and stood up. "Okay. Let's not keep your mother waiting, huh?"

Nodding, Joseph hauled himself up as he was led down the hall. But as they were walking, Sam felt a fresh surge of pain in his head and had to stagger to a stop.

"Dad?"

Stars danced in front of Sam, little orbs of pain-induced light. He groaned and pressed his palms into his eyes, waiting to steady himself before attempting to walk again.

"Dad, are you okay?"

"Uh, yeah," Sam managed to get out, sucking it up. He lowered his hands and blinked furiously as his eyes adjusted. "Just a headache, that's all. C'mon, let's go."

Al had tried for too many years now to understand Donna, but they were just two people who zigzagged in different directions. She'd rather spend the Project's Christmas party quietly working, while he was usually spreading some Christmas cheer under the mistletoe. She liked classical music, and he was into disco. Her clothes tended to sway toward the romantic and subdued, while he'd always pick the gaudiest, flashiest getup he could find. Now he knew how to be professional and conservative when he needed to be, but when the work gloves were shed and the bureaucrats went home, that was when the real Al Calavicci came out. But Donna, she never turned off. She was _always_ in work mode. That's where she stayed, and that's where she was happiest.

It's not that he didn't like her. She was a perfectly nice woman, and an extraordinary one even. But she was also a wet blanket with whom he shared zero personality traits. On several occasions Al had tried to strike up a conversation with her about something other than the Project, all of which ended in awkward silence.

They hadn't always gotten along as well as that. When Sam had taken his first leap, there had been quite a bit of tension between them because Al-and not Donna-was chosen as Project Director in his absence. But why should she? This project had been Sam and Al's baby, and _he_ should be the one in charge. Sam might've been the genius behind it, but who got the funding? Who was there to spitball ideas? Who had been there to drag Sam away from his work so he'd at least remember to eat? To witness the Project when it was simply an empty patch of desert? As far as Sam was concerned, Al was as much a creator of Project Quantum Leap as he was.

Donna understood that, but there was always that underlying sense of jealousy there, no matter how much she tried to mask it. Regardless, she knew Sam trusted Al, and so she did too. She trusted him to keep her secret so Sam could complete his leaps, she trusted him with her husband's very life, and, to his immense credit, he never betrayed that trust. They'd built up something of a friendship by now, but neither one of them could find a common ground between them.

Except for one thing, and that was how much they cared for Sam. Which was probably why Donna was so incensed at the moment.

"Why didn't you tell me about this the moment Sam started acting strange?" Donna demanded. Al's initial fear had faded into annoyance.

"You were busy," he stated very shortly, tapping on his desk, "You were working on the retrieval program, and I thought that was more important at the time."

"It won't mean a damn thing if he's dead, Al!"

"He's not dying, Donna," Al emphasized loudly, straightening up, "So stop acting like he's got one foot in the grave!" Sam might be in big trouble, but he wasn't down for the count yet. She should've known better than to give up on him so easily.

Sighing, Donna's face softened and she fell heavily into the chair in front of Al's desk. "I'm sorry," she said, leaning into her hand, "It's not your fault. I just wish I knew what was happening to him."

"Yeah, you and me both." Al considered the unlit cigar he rolled between his fingers.

"I might have an inkling," came a voice from the doorway. They turned in surprise to see Sammy Jo there, her face screwed up in a nervous expression. The other two rose to their feet as she stepped inside, placing a large manila folder on Al's desk.

"What's this?" Al asked in confusion.

"Just look at them."

Opening up the folder, he skimmed the contents with furrowed brows. "These are Sam's notes. So what?"

Sammy Jo shook her head. "No. Not Sam's."

The door to the Waiting Room slid open and Al stepped inside, expecting to see the same Miguel he'd met before. To everyone else, he looked like Sam, but Al could see through the aura to the true person underneath. Miguel had been soft-spoken and mostly kept to himself, respectful and polite even when he was afraid. Now, however, the man was surrounded by papers, writing with furious enthusiasm, skirting around the room as a new idea came to him and he had to add to previous notes. Although the Project couldn't provide the leapees with anything from the future, they could give them reading materials that were printed before their timeline, and by the looks of it, he was surrounded by everything they had on hand.

"Holy mackerel..." an astonished Al whispered to himself.

Miguel's head lifted as he noticed his visitor for the first time, a wide smile spreading across his face. "Al! It's good to see you!"

Before Al could react, the large man had swept him up into a friendly hug, as if they'd been buddies for years. Now Al was _really_ bewildered. "Uh, hi again, Miguel...You mind letting me breathe a little?"

Miguel pulled back. "Oh, sorry." He frowned in thought and studied Al closely, pacing around him. "I know you, don't I? I mean, I knew you? Before I was in here?"

"Uh, no, I can't say you did."

"Hmm, strange..." Miguel continued to pace. There was something familiar about his mannerisms, about the way he pursed his lips as he thought. While he was chewing on his pencil, Al looked down at the notes on the floor, picking up a sheet of paper. When he read what was on it, his eyes nearly popped out of his skull.

This was Sam's string theory.

"You had a hammer."

"Huh?" Dumbfounded, Al looked up from the paper in his hands.

"You had a hammer," Miguel repeated, "and you were hitting a vending machine with it. That's when we first met."

Al stood stock still, his eyes wide, and his mouth agape. That was how he and Sam had first met. But how the hell would Miguel know about that? And how would he know about the string theory, or understand any of this stuff on these papers, with only a tenth grade education? Hell, Al couldn't understand a lot of it.

Miguel bit his lip, seemingly just as baffled. "But we _didn't_...it was someone else. Someone named Sam. The same Sam who came up with this string theory, the same Sam who took my place in 1973. And now I'm here in New Mexico in 2000."

Now Al knew something was up, because no one but he or Dr. Beeks could have told Miguel sensitive information about the Project or the future, and never once had Verbena broken that rule. And Al sure as hell hadn't told him, so how would he know where they were or what the year was? And why did he sound so much like Sam? Why had everything around here gone so loopy?

"How much do you know?" he asked the other man cautiously.

"Just pieces...like I'm two different people, you know?" Miguel sat down on the table in the middle of the room, gazing at Sam's reflection. "There's all this stuff just...filling my head. I-I remember being a child in Puerto Rico, but I also remember a farm in Indiana. But I can't have been in both places at the same time, right? And I don't think I've ever really been to Indiana." He tore his attention away from Sam's face and began to study Al closely. "I...I know you aren't my friend, but...I feel as if you are." He knitted his brows, and Al was taken aback by how eerily reminiscent he was of Sam. A slight fear shook Miguel's voice as he asked, "Al...what's happening?"

Hell if he knew, but he was going to find out. "Something very hinky, pal."

Sammy Jo led Al into the Control Room, where Donna, Gooshie, and Tina were working frantically. Apparently whatever was happening, they had already been informed, and Al hated being out of the loop. He was going to get answers _now_.

"Enough with the cryptic runaround, Sammy Jo," Al ordered gruffly, "You want to let me know what the hell is happening here?"

Grimacing, Sammy Jo nervously pulled back her hair. "It's my fault! I was the one who messed up! If I'd just taken the time to quadruple check everything, we wouldn't be in this mess! I'm sorry, Al, I really bungled it this time."

"Sammy Jo, slow down." Al cut off her babbling. Sometimes, she got so stuck in her own head, she forgot that she'd started in the middle of the conversation. "I'm going to need you to take about ten steps back here, starting with why Miguel is getting Sam's memories."

Sammy Jo sighed, "Because of the retrieval program."

"What? The retrieval program?"

"You see..." Sammy Jo picked up a screwdriver and waved it along with her hand, making her look much like an orchestrator. "The way the program had previously worked, we had to wait until Sam had leaped and we'd locked onto him before we could try retrieval. This time, however, I used previous data from the leaps to lock onto his neurons and mesons and basically try to...summon them back."

"But it didn't work," Al said, scratching his head, "I was there; the whole thing went kablooey."

"But it _did_ work! Thing is, it's _only_ retrieving his neurons and mesons!" Sammy Jo said guiltily, "And they're going exactly to where we summoned them."

"...to the Waiting Room. To Miguel!" A wide-eyed Al gasped, connecting the dots.

"Precisely," confirmed Sammy Jo, "And as his neurons and mesons go, all of his memories go with them."

As Al soaked in the information, he leaned against the main console and inquired, "So what you're saying is, Sam's losing his mind?"

"In the most literal sense of the term."

Al took a moment to silently collect himself, after which he straightened his posture and tried to come up with a game plan. "Okay then. Now that we've pinpointed the problem, why don't you put the program into reverse?"

"Well...it doesn't work so well in reverse," answered Sammy Jo apprehensively, biting her lip.

"What do you mean? Just send his neurons and mesons back the other way!"

"It's not like crossing the street, Al. We're talking about the human brain here."

This was giving Al a headache of his own. He took out a cigar to soothe his nerves, but stopped short of lighting it when Donna cleared her throat and gave him the side-eye. Careful not to show his embarrassment, he smoothly slipped the cigar back into his jacket. Sammy Jo continued.

"You remember when we tried to fix Sam after he got scrambled with Lee Harvey Oswald?"

"Yeah."

"We tried to send the bits of Sam's mind back to him, but you can't transport isolated neurons and mesons without also sending other neural energy," said Sammy Jo, "So he ended up with _more_ of Oswald's personality instead. If we try it again here, it'll send Miguel's neural energy with it."

Al shrugged. "So? It's better than nothing, if it means Sam can complete this leap. Plus Miguel's not a killer like Oswald was."

"That's true, but we're not talking about a few mesons and neurons here," said Sammy Jo, "Sam's lost a _lot_ , and with how much we'd need to move...If something goes wrong, we could kill either one of them. Do you know if he's been having headaches?"

"He has, yeah." Of course. Al felt stupid for not having connected them with the memory loss, but he was too preoccupied with said memory loss to make the association.

Sammy Jo nodded knowingly at the confirmation. "It's a side effect of the retrieval, and it's only going to get worse the more of his mind he loses. Now imagine what it would feel like if we transported everything back all at once."

"He'd have the mother of all hangovers," Al concluded with worry.

"And that's the best case scenario. Worst case, he could have a brain aneurysm."

Al stiffened at the news. No way was he going to risk Sam's life. It wasn't even an option. Before he had time to state that very sentiment, Sammy Jo threw another monkey wrench into the leap.

"But that's not what we should be worried about right now."

"It's not?" Al was finding it hard to imagine anything worse to worry about.

"The more Sam deteriorates, the harder it'll be to keep in contact with him," Sammy Jo explained, "And if we lose contact, or he leaps before we fix this...his memories are gone forever, and we'll never be able to find him."

Never mind. This was worse by a long shot.

Rubbing the side of his face, Al blew out a breath. "Oh boy..."

If someone could bash Sam over the head with a frying pan right about now, that'd be great. Anything was preferable to the pounding in his temples.

"Ugggghhh..."

"Here, take this."

Sam felt a pill being pressed into his palm and opened his eyes to see Gabriela with a glass of water. Gratefully, he took the glass and quickly downed the aspirin. Once he'd done that, Gabriela gently took him by the arm and led him to the bed.

"Good. Now I want you to lie down and rest. Understood?"

"Yes, ma'am," Sam answered, attempting a small bit of humor. He fell back onto the pillows, throwing his arm over his eyes.

"I'll be in later with something to eat," Gabriela said quietly, "You try and feel better."

His eyes still covered, Sam simply nodded. He felt a small tingle as her lips brushed his forehead, and the door closed. Now that the lights were off, his moved his arm and stared at the dark ceiling.

He wished he'd had more energy to thank her than that, but he was equal parts miserable and terrified. It was difficult to keep himself from screaming, but neither of his new family members would understand the mess he was in. _He_ didn't even understand it. The entire drive home, he'd been quizzing himself to make sure he still remembered certain things, but then he found himself wondering how much he didn't even know he'd forgotten. He'd had this strange feeling from the very beginning of this leap, like he'd neglected to do something before he'd left the house but he didn't know what. However, it wasn't until Al had gotten that odd look on his face that he'd started to suspect something was not entirely normal. When Sam had...what had he been doing when Al left? Like so much of what he thought he knew, it was gone now.

If he tried hard enough, he could keep his memories, he knew he could. He just had to keep reminding himself. He was born in...well, that didn't matter. His mother was Thelma Louise...something. No father. His sister was...

What was his sister's name? What did she look like? And for that matter, what did his mother look like? What did _he_ look like?

Panic began to settle in again as he realized he'd lost even more. How much had he forgotten? He used to know the names of the stars. Now he didn't even know where he'd gone to school, who his friends were, what he'd learned...he didn't know how old he was, or how long he'd been leaping. But maybe these were things he always forgot. How much of his life had been completely erased when he started traveling in time? How much of him?

As his eyes swept the room, his attention fell onto a tattered old Bible on the nightstand, its cover wrinkled from frequent use. Sam didn't consider himself a religious person, but he knew without a shadow of a doubt that there was some higher power out there. The fact he was traveling through time fixing other people's lives meant he was living proof of that, after all. And right now, he could use some guidance from God, Time, Fate, or Whatever. He picked up the book, opened it, and then a sick feeling sunk deep into his stomach.

He couldn't read.

A blinding, painful square of light appeared in the room, and Sam had to wince and cover his eyes again. "Whoops! Sorry, Sam."

 _Shoomp!_

Peering through his fingers, Sam saw a very worried looking Al. "How you feeling? How's your head?"

"I've been better," Sam admitted, sitting up, "Al, it's getting worse. Did you find out what's happening?"

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, I did." Suddenly, Al was very interested in a photo of Miguel and Gabriela on the dresser.

"And?"

When Al pivoted to face him, he waved dismissively and grinned, "It's just some hiccup back at the Project, but it's not a big deal. In fact, we're already correcting it, so you can take it easy."

Sam narrowed his eyes. "A hiccup? What kind of hiccup?"

"Just a, you know, a technical error," Al said with a shrug. He bounced on his feet and pursed his lips. "...that's causing you to lose a few neurons and mesons. But it's nothing you need to worry about." He nodded and gave an encouraging smile.

"What kind of error, Al?"

"I told you, Sam, it's nothing to worry-"

"Don't tell me not to worry!" exploded Sam, getting to his feet. He picked up the Bible and waved it at the hologram. "I can't read this! I can't read anything! I-I forgot what my sister looked like, I...I don't remember what happened yesterday! I can't even remember my own goddamn last name!" Lividly, he tossed the book onto the bed, but his anger was soon directed back at Al. Fixing him with stone cold eyes, he quietly said, "Stop lying to me, Al. I'm so tired of it."

Al hadn't expected that kind of outburst from Sam, but the part that absolutely tore into him was the plea at the end. He felt like an absolute heel. But, he reasoned to himself, he'd had Sam's best interests at heart. What good would it have done to make Sam freak out over something he had no control over?

That was a cop out, and he knew it. Maybe, partially, he didn't want Sam to know they'd let him down. That resentful look on his friend's face made him feel like he was five years old again, and he swallowed.

"Well, uh...as you probably figured out, something is happening to your mind..." Al paused for Sam to respond, but he was met with expectant silence. Nervously, Al coughed and wiped his nose. "There was kind of...sort of...a problem when we tried to retrieve you last."

"What kind of problem?" Sam slowly gritted through his teeth.

Rapidly, Al explained, "The idea was to get you back by locking onto your mesons and neurons, but that...uh, backfired, and, uh, now your mesons and neurons are coming back without you."

"What?!" Sam shouted with disbelief, "You mean this is _your_ fault?!"

"Not mine _specifically_ , but..."

"So what, a-am I just going to keep losing my memories u-until I'm a blank slate?" Sam asked demandingly, but he couldn't disguise the shaking in his voice.

"Yes. But!" Al cut in before Sam could cry out again, "We've got good people working on it, and I promise we'll get this fixed!"

A dark cloud fell over Sam as he stared at the ground, contemplating his horrible situation. He didn't want to hear this next part, but at the same time he needed to know. "How long?"

Hesitantly, Al shuffled his feet. "...Ziggy's estimated you've got until tomorrow evening."

"Tomorrow evening?" Sam repeated in shock. His legs shaking now, he had to take a seat on the bed again. He wasn't prepared for this prognosis. Tomorrow evening? That's all the time he had before...before he didn't know what.

What Sam needed was a shot of optimism, and if Al could do nothing else at the moment, he could at least provide that. "But we'll make it right before then!" he assured him, "All you need to do is focus on your objectives for this leap. In fact!" He pulled out the handlink just to double check his information. "Ziggy says you've already changed Joseph's history! Yeah, he stays in school and doesn't get killed in a gang fight. In fact, he even goes to college and gets a degree in engineering."

"Really?" Despite his overwhelming terror, Sam did feel happy about that news. At least he'd done _some_ good on this leap so far. Even though he didn't recall that helping Joseph was one of his objectives, or that he'd been killed in a gang fight. Now that the original history had been changed, he supposed it didn't matter if he remembered or not.

"Really," Al answered cheerfully, "This is not going to be an issue, Sam. This isn't the first time your mind's gone a little screwy, so just treat this like any other leap." As an idea struck him, he chuckled. "Hey, who knows? Maybe it'll do you some good to have that genius brain of yours clear for a while. Hell, I'd love to get some of that peace and quiet. I know there are quite a few things _I'd_ like to forget...For instance, my third...or was it my fourth...? No wait, my fifth wife. Actually, all three of them..."

He'd gone off topic for a second, and Sam wasn't paying attention to him anymore. He had his hand over his mouth absentmindedly, his brows furrowed, as he stared at the floor. He didn't look any better than he did when Al had first showed up.

"You'll be okay, Sam," he reassured him, "This is all just temporary. You'll get your memories back."

"It's not just this leap that's bothering me, Al." When Sam lifted his head, he looked utterly lost. If he didn't say any of this now, he might not get another chance before it was gone too. "It's every leap. It's what leaping does to me. Every time I enter someone else's life, I lose pieces of myself, things I can't remember, and I...I don't know if that's changed me, because I can't remember who I was." He looked at Al with glistening eyes. "I mean, I don't even know if I'm that same person who stepped into the Accelerator Chamber."

Now the kid was breaking his heart. Al might not have any answers as to how to fix Sam's memories, but he at least knew the answer to this one. With a direct stare at his friend, he stated firmly, "Sam, in all the time that I've known you, and throughout every leap...you've always been you."

Sam shook his head. "I wish I could be sure of that."

"You can be, because I know that as a fact," Al stated confidently, "Maybe you don't know you so well right now, but I do. No matter what you've been through, you can't change the fundamentals of Sam Beckett. You know you can trust me on this one."

"I don't."

"Don't what? You don't trust me?" asked Al, unable to hide the sting in his voice.

"No. I don't _know_ you," Sam answered, trembling, "Not...not before the leaps. And some of it after."

Al felt as if he'd just been sucker-punched. How could Sam have forgotten him already? Even with the knowledge that it wasn't his friend's fault, it still hurt. "Oh, Sam..."

Sam's eyes were searching the room, as if he could find his memories somewhere physically there with them. "I mean, I know I _should_ remember you. I know you must be important to me, because...because why would you be my Observer if you weren't? But I don't remember that much about you. Like...how long have we known each other?"

"For, uh...for a long time now," Al answered softly. He couldn't look Sam in the eye.

"How long? I know we were friends before I leaped. Right?"

Yes. They were friends. Sam was the best friend he ever had, and he didn't even know him. What a kick in the butt. But Al feeling depressed about it wasn't going to help, so, ignoring his bruised feelings, he pulled himself together and answered authoritatively, "Never mind that, Sam. It doesn't matter. What matters is that tomorrow evening, two people are caught in a fire and one of them dies. You remember the fire, right, Sam?"

Sam thought hard. His head hurt. "Yeah, I remember. At the institute."

"Right. So no matter how much you swiss cheese between today and tomorrow, just keep that one thing in mind. Okay?"

"Okay. I'll try."

"Good. Get some rest." Al took out the handlink to open the Imaging Chamber door.

"Al."

"Yeah?"

"I'm afraid. What if I go to sleep and...and I lose everything?"

Never had Al wished more that he could reach out and hug his buddy, let him know that it was going to be alright. Even though he really didn't know if it would be. Sam had asked him not to lie. But he did know one thing was true.

"You've got me, kid," Al said, "I won't let you get lost." Aw jeez, he had to split before he started crying too. He lifted the handlink. "Close your eyes. I'm opening the door."

Sam obediently closed his eyes, and Al opened the Imaging Chamber, stepping back. "Al, wait!" Sam asked abruptly, his eyes still shut.

"What? What is it?"

"Tell me what my name is again. Please."

"Sam Beckett. You're Sam Beckett."

"Sam Beckett," repeated Sam, as if he'd never heard it before.

Al couldn't see any more of this. With a press of a button, the door slid shut and he disappeared.

Once he'd heard the door shut, Sam opened his eyes and laid down again, sorting through his jumbled thoughts, trying to still his rapidly beating heart. His head was pounding, and it made it hard to concentrate. As much as he'd like to believe that the Project would be able to fix him soon, he felt his hold on reality slipping more and more every minute. And by tomorrow night...Sam Beckett wouldn't exist anymore.

Sam Beckett. He had to hold onto that. As long as he had that, he knew he was real.

Sam Beckett.

Sam Beckett.

Sam Beck...

Sam B...

Sam...

S...

...

Sleep overtook him, and his mind went black.


	4. Chapter 4

Things had certainly gone a little caca this time. Okay, a _lot_ caca. One moment, Sam was well on his way to finally coming home, and now Al was fighting to make sure they didn't lose him forever. If Sam was this bad now, who knew how he'd be by morning? At the Project, however, it was still early afternoon, so that meant they had plenty of time to figure out how to help him. Hey, maybe they'd have it fixed before he even woke up.

Al's discussion with Sam had given him a lot to think about. More and more, he had found it had become his job to lie to his friend. He'd like to say it was always because of some pressing need to protect sensitive information, or because it was pertinent to the leap, but sometimes it was honestly just easier than telling the truth. It had become second nature for him to come up with some nonsense about Ziggy's technical workings to excuse not having useful information at the time, or to make up stories about his latest conquests when he'd simply just been too swamped with work to sleep. Once, he'd fabricated this entire narrative about a noisy neighbor who worked on his car late at night and kept him up. Ha! If he'd even had time to visit his off-site home anymore that would be a miracle. But his lies were never meant out of malice, because he would never do anything to knowingly hurt Sam. He lied because he didn't want Sam to worry, and there were some things he couldn't know in order to accomplish what he needed to during the leaps.

He _wasn't_ lying, however, when he'd said Sam was always himself despite his mind full of holes. Fundamentally, anyway. He was always the Boy Scout he'd been before, the same type of person who would help a little old lady cross the street, the farm boy with a heart of gold. But that didn't mean he hadn't changed.

Sam was different after he leaped. For instance, Sam Beckett as he knew him would never, ever bring up Al's drinking to hurt him. But on one early leap, that's what he did. As another, less dramatic example, Sam absolutely _hated_ pickles, which worked out fine because Al hated pickles too. But one leap, Al walked in and sure enough, there was Sam eating a sandwich with pickles, like some sort of pickle-lover. Yuck.

But Sam tended to merge with his hosts at times, making it hard to distinguish what was Sam and what was leftovers. Maybe he hadn't changed at all. Still, Al couldn't help but wonder if the process of leaping had altered Sam in some way. It did steal away parts of his memory, meaning he was always missing something, and each leap was a surprise as to what new thing Sam couldn't remember. Still, Sam always remembered what he needed to.

Sometimes, Al envied him. Because he, on the other hand, remembered everything.

Because of Al's unique connection to Ziggy, he could remember the original and the altered timelines from the leaps. But Sam didn't just alter history for one person. Each time he leaped he changed something, and sometimes he changed the Project. To everyone else, the new timeline would shift altered memories into place and they would go on with their lives none the wiser. Parallel hybrid computer aside, literally only one person in history would know about these changes, and that was Al Calavicci. And that meant that he knew every little divergence, every history, every timeline that involved him or the leaps. It was all swimming in his head, the best and the worst of it, and it was his own private burden.

He remembered when Donna left Sam at the altar, and he remembered exiting the Imaging Chamber and suddenly she was there. He remembered five years in Vietnam, then eight. He even remembered a history where he'd gone to the gas chamber. The recollection made him shudder. He never liked to revisit that one.

Only Ziggy knew. He never told anyone. Frankly, he was worried they'd make him talk to Dr. Beeks about it, and he hated speaking with shrinks. But there were times when he felt like his head was so crowded with all of these what-ifs and almost-weres. Sometimes the memories were awful, but that wasn't nearly as bad as the memories that were great. Every once in a while, but not often, he'd mix up what had happened in an alternate timeline and what had happened now.

And he had to wonder. Had that changed _him_? Was he the same Al Calavicci as the one from six years ago? Maybe neither he nor Sam were the people they once were.

Maybe he needed to stop waxing philosophical, get his butt in gear, and save Sam before it was too late.

Yeesh, it was a shame Sam wasn't here right now, because he was the one person who could figure out how to fix that retrieval program for good. But then again, if he were here, they wouldn't need to fix it, now would they? Still, it wouldn't hurt to have Sam's noggin right about now.

Hold the phone. Sam _was_ here...at least in some capacity. Wasn't he? Then Al had an idea. He would need to do some _serious_ bending of the rules this time.

 _Shit._ His head felt as if it were going to explode. Had he been drinking last night? He wasn't much of a drinker...he didn't think. That was something he should remember, right? But for some reason...he was drawing a blank. He _must_ have been drinking.

When he opened his eyes, the daylight streaming in from the window blinded him and he immediately snapped them closed again. Groaning, he ran his hand over his face. Ugh. If a truck were to suddenly run over him, he was sure he'd feel a whole lot better. But in the back of his mind, he knew he had something important to do...whatever that was. He had to get up.

Slowly, painstakingly, he pried open his eyes. Suddenly, he shot upright. Where was he? He'd never been here before! The last place he remembered being was...he didn't know. Why didn't he know? Where did he live?

Oh god. What was his name?

"Good morning. Do you feel like having some breakfast?"

Yelling in surprise, Sam turned to see a strange woman in the doorway. Had she kidnapped him? Had she hit him over the head, and that's why he couldn't remember anything? It would explain his splitting headache.

"Who are you?"

She frowned. "Miguel, that's not very funny."

Miguel? Was that his name? "Wh-Who's Miguel?"

"Please stop," the woman ordered, dead serious. But so was he. Her frown faded into shock. "Honey?"

When she reached out to him, he instinctually jumped out of bed, hiding on the other side. He wasn't going to let her hurt him again! "Don't touch me!" he yelled, eyes darting frantically around this unfamiliar room, "Who are you? What is this place? What did you do to me?"

"Miguel, you're scaring me," the woman said tearfully.

"I'm not Miguel! I'm...I'm..."

He didn't know. He just didn't know! His heart was nearly pounding out of his chest, and his head screamed at him. None of this made any sense! People don't just wake up one day not knowing anything...unless something terrible happened to him. Where was he? Who was he? God, he was so scared!

His head had to have been splitting in two. Thud. Thud. _Thud. THUD_.

Whoever he was, he fell onto the floor and out of consciousness.

 _God, please let me wake up from this nightmare._

Al was gonna need a lot of coffee for this, because they were in for a long night. After a surprisingly short debate, Miguel had been allowed into the Control Room and began working with Sammy Jo, Gooshie, Tina, and Donna on reversing what the retrieval program had done. Miguel already knew what the Project was anyway, so they didn't see any further harm in letting him out of the Waiting Room. At first, Al wasn't sure if Miguel would agree to help them-after all, they _did_ essentially kidnap him through time-but Miguel was either a goodhearted person or inherited that aspect of Sam as well, because he was eager to help before they'd even finished asking. That part was easy. The hard part was actually cleaning up this mess.

This involved a lot of technical jargon that Al didn't fully understand, so right now he was about as useful as a stack of bricks. A room full of geniuses, and he was starting to feel like he should be wearing a dunce cap in the corner. So reluctantly, he'd excused himself to his office in an uneasy attempt to lower his stack of paperwork, while he waited to be handy again. Just as he was lifting his coffee mug to his lips, Ziggy's voice filled the room.

"Admiral Calavicci."

"Oh thank god," Al sighed, thankful for a distraction, "What is it, Zig?"

"I thought it would be pertinent to inform you that Dr. Beckett has changed history again."

"Oh yeah? I don't suppose he stopped that fire?" Al asked in vain optimism.

"I'm afraid not, Admiral," Ziggy answered indifferently, "The fire still occurs at the Howell Scientific Institute, only now Miguel Rivera is not in the building. And on April 10th, 1973, Mr. Rivera is sent to St. Victor's Hospital for the Mentally Ill, where he stays for the rest of his life."

"What?!" Al spluttered, rocketing to his feet, "Why didn't you tell me?!"

"I believe I just did," responded Ziggy, her voice dripping with sarcasm, "I can only tell you what I know as soon as I receive the information, which is 1002.4673% quicker than what your fragile human brain has capacity for, I might add."

Al was already at the door. "Zip it, Ego Trip, and get ready to center me on Sam when I get to the Imaging Chamber."

"I can't do that, Admiral."

He stopped with the door halfway open. "Why not?"

"Dr. Beckett's brainwaves are significantly altered, and I'm having difficulties locking on to him. He's making it very troublesome for me, Admiral," she said, making sure to place the blame squarely on Sam.

"What are you saying? You've lost contact with him?" Al's heart dropped to his feet. They can't have lost him. It was an impossibility.

"No," Ziggy responded, to Al's relief, "However, my connection is too weak to center you on him presently. Give me...6 hours and 27 minutes to reestablish a stronger hold."

"Are you kidding me?!" Al barked, incredulous, "No way, Ziggy! That's too long!"

"Oh, I'm sorry. Would you like to establish the connection yourself, Admiral?"

"I don't need any sass from you, you overpriced piece of hardware!" Al yelled angrily, glaring at the ceiling, "You find a way to contact Sam, and you do it now! And can the attitude!"

"I'll see what I can do, Admiral," Ziggy said lackadaisically, "But only because you sound so cute when you're angry."

If he could strangle her, he would. But he knew he needed her to talk to Sam, and despite her attitude, she cared too much about her creator to not try her hardest to save him. Being built with biological components gave her oddly human characteristics at times, something which gave Al the willies, but it was a benefit when Sam got into particularly difficult jams. And boy, was he in one now.

6 hours. That was a lot of time for 1973 to go seriously off the rails. Ha, imagine that! Things had already gone to hell in a handbasket.

Gabriela Rivera was beside herself with worry. In one night, her husband had gone from having a bad headache to having no idea who she was, or his own identity. It was inconceivable. She'd never heard of anything like this happening so quickly to someone...and it couldn't have happened to Miguel. Not her husband. Not her family.

After Miguel had passed out in the bedroom, she'd immediately called a doctor, and, after some convincing, she had gotten her husband to agree to an examination. He was still behaving oddly, but at least he wasn't hiding from her anymore. Once the doctor had examined him and asked him some questions, he and Gabriela exited into the hallway privately.

"Please tell me you have some answers," Gabriela pleaded, chewing on her fingers nervously.

"Well, Mrs. Rivera, I'm not sure I can diagnose anything with just a general examination," the doctor explained gently, "His memory loss and abnormal behavior could be related to any number of mental illnesses."

"Oh my god..." Gabriela gasped and covered her mouth. "He isn't...I mean he's not...he's not crazy, is he?"

"I wish I could tell you one way or the other, but all I can tell here is the physical. He doesn't appear to have any evidence of external injury, but some of his other symptoms are worrying."

"Like what?"

"A migraine of that length and severity would suggest to me something internal, such as a brain tumor."

"Oh my god!" Gabriela repeated, horrified. Her hands were shaking.

"I must stress that I really don't know, Mrs. Rivera," the doctor stated, "It could be something less severe, but I just want to keep you informed that there's a possibility of further risk."

"What..." Gabriela had to stop for a moment to collect herself. She took a deep breath. "What do you think we should do?"

"I'd suggest you take him to a hospital, ma'am. He can be more accurately diagnosed with the proper equipment. If they can't find anything physically wrong with him, you'll likely be recommended to see a psychiatrist for further evaluation."

She had to turn away from him, leaning against the wall and mulling over the possibilities in her head. It was all too much to take in at once. "I see," she said quietly, "Th-Thank you, doctor."

"If you like, I can recommend a specialist for you."

Unable to hold back her tears any longer, she shook her head and sniffled. "Thank you, but...we can't afford that. We...we barely have enough to live. And if Miguel can't work..." She broke down into sobs. "I'm sorry, doctor, I just don't know what we're going to do!"

Around the corner nearby, Joseph Rivera silently watched his mother cry.

On the other side of the door, someone who was told his name was Miguel sat on the edge of the bed and listened to this conversation through the thin wall. A gray cat hopped up beside him, and he gently stroked its fur. Although he didn't know the cat, its presence was an odd comfort, an anchor to a reality he no longer knew.

He didn't _think_ he was crazy, but in all fairness, he couldn't think of much. He did, however, have pieces left. The institute. There was something he needed to do there. His...wife, had said he worked there. He didn't go to his shift today. He couldn't...do whatever it was he did. She said he was a janitor, but he didn't remember working there...he remembered he was a magician. And a dancer. Or was he a butler? He must have had many jobs.

His head still ached, but the pills the doctor had given him had taken some of the edge off. God, could he be right? Did he have a brain tumor? Was he dying? Could it be removed? And if it was removed, would he remember everything then? He'd have to wait for Al to show up with information on the leap before he knew for sure.

Al! He remembered Al! He would know what was happening, because he always had the answers. Because...he gave him all these jobs? Leaps? Leaps, leaps, he was...traveling...to fix mistakes...mistakes that already happened. But how could he fix something that already happened? That didn't make sense.

 _Please get here soon, Al,_ he pleaded internally _, I could really use your help._

He looked up, and a young man was standing hesitantly in the doorway.

"Hello," Miguel said uncertainly.

The young man scratched nervously at the loose paint on the door frame. "Mom says there's something wrong with you."

"I guess so," he answered quietly. This must be his son. He wished he could remember him.

"Are you...I mean...are we going to be okay?" His son looked up at him pleadingly, hoping for an answer he couldn't give him. But he was just a kid. He shouldn't have to worry about these things. Miguel felt, deep in his heart, that this child needed more help than he did.

"Yeah," he answered, "I think things will be okay, um..." He knew his name. It was there. Somewhere.

His son frowned. "You don't even remember my name, do you?"

"Well, I..."

Fear turned to anger. "It's not fair! It's not fair that this happens, and that they try to kick me out of school, and that we have to live in this terrible house!"

"Sometimes life isn't fair," Miguel said, then added, "But it will get better." It had to. He believed that.

"How would you know?" his son spat out, "You can't even remember! You don't remember that Mom works for nothing at that stupid diner, or that everyone at your job treats you like you're an idiot! Everyone at school thinks I'm no good, that I'm just going to drop out and clean toilets like you! And you could die because we can't afford to take you to the hospital, and nobody is going to help! Nobody cares about us! It's never going to get better! Never!"

His son abruptly ran away, and Miguel rushed to the door.

"Hey! Wait!" he called, but as he started to follow, another sharp pain hit him.

Where was he? How did he get here? He must have just leaped in.

Leaped? What was a leap?

There was somewhere he needed to be. Somewhere not here. He had to go.

He exited the room and went straight out the front door.

"Alright, what've we got?" asked Al as he entered the control room, "Any progress?"

Sammy Jo emerged from underneath an open panel, an optimistic grin on her face, "I feel like we're getting close, Al! I mean, uh, Admiral Calavicci," she corrected herself, for the sake of decorum in front of the leapee. "We've hit some stumbling blocks, but we might've found a workaround..." As she was saying this, a shower of sparks emitted from the open panel and she ducked out of the way. She looked up at Al sheepishly. "Er...it's a work in progress."

Miguel was working on a nearby panel, humming a tune...The Impossible Dream. Al got the chills. Sam used to do that when he was at the Project. Getting to his feet and exhaling deeply, Miguel wiped the sweat from his brow. Clearly, the hours and hours of work were taking their toll. As urgent as the matter was, it wouldn't do them much good if he passed out from exhaustion in the middle of it. And if Miguel were anything like Sam-and he was-he wouldn't know when to take a break. As usual, it was up to Al to remind him.

"Hey Miguel, why don't you take five?" he suggested, handing him a glass of water. The other man took it gratefully.

"Thanks, Al." He gave Al one of Sam's smiles, and Al tried not to show that it bothered him.

"Well thank you for helping us fix this," Al said, "You're saving a good man."

"I know he is," Miguel responded, smiling. He looked toward the wall in thought, his smile fading. "Hey Al, I had a question. I think I know the answer, but I want to hear it from you."

Al wiped away the bleariness around his eyes. It was getting late. "Uh, sure, go ahead and shoot."

Miguel knitted his brows. "When we reverse the retrieval program...does that mean I'll go back to being stupid?"

"Aw, kid..." Al said gently. He wasn't sure why he called him "kid," maybe because he was so much like Sam now. But Sam's mesons and neurons or not, it was Miguel who had decided to help them, knowing full well this could be a risk to him as well. He was a good man too. Al looked him straight in the eye. "Listen. You're not stupid, okay? You never were."

"That's nice of you to say, Al...but I know I wasn't the brightest," Miguel said, although he was still upbeat, "That's why I couldn't get better work than being a janitor. I've never known what it was like to be a genius...to know quantum physics, to work on a time travel program of all things!" He laughed, then his smile turned sad. "I'm going to miss it...that's all."

Al nodded, running his hand along the console in thought. "Miguel, I've read about your history, you know. You came to New York in 40s, and you dropped out of school to help your family make enough to just skate by. And when you had a family of your own, you continued to work hard at jobs nobody else wanted...and I'm willing to bet you refused to let your son help because you wanted him to focus on school, and have a life you never had. And maybe you don't have much, but you have your son and your wife, and that's what means the most to you. Am I close?"

Miguel nodded. Al did too.

"You chose your family, Miguel. And that's pretty smart."

This time, Miguel's smile was genuine. "Thank you."

"Any time."

"Admiral Calavicci," came Ziggy's voice from above.

"Yeah, what is it?"

"As of 5.93 seconds ago, the connection with Dr. Beckett's brainwaves became strong enough to establish contact."

Al was already grabbing a handlink and heading for the Imaging Chamber.

"AH!" A scared man who didn't know who he was narrowly avoided being hit by a silver car as he was crossing the street, and the driver honked angrily at him. Normally he would have been more careful, but the pain in his head was making it hard to think.

What was he doing? He was looking for something...someone...Damn it! It was just out of his reach! He was sure it would come to him eventually, if he just kept walking...

Why did everything look so old? That car that nearly hit him must've been from the 70s, in fact, no vehicle that drove by was any newer than that. He looked in a shop window, and inside were toys he hadn't seen for years. Was this an antique shop?

As he'd been walking, it had come to his attention that he didn't know a single thing about himself. Oh god. Something terrible must have happened to him. But what? Of one thing he was certain. When he was lost, he had one person he could count on, and that was...

"Al!"

Ziggy must've gotten a wire crossed when attempting to center Al on Sam, because he'd ended up halfway down the street and facing the wrong direction. As he spun around looking for his friend, he was alarmed to see him running toward him in a pair of flannel pajamas.

"Al!" Sam shouted, half-relieved, "Thank god it's you!"

"Sam, uh, what're you doing out here in your PJs?"

"Huh?" Sam looked down at himself, as if he'd only just realized what he was wearing, "Oh, I...I don't know. Is that my name? Sam?"

"Yeah, it sure is. Sam Beckett."

Sam frowned. "That's not what...someone said. They said I was Miguel."

"No, Sam," Al corrected him, "Miguel is the name of the person you leaped into."

"Leaped? What're you talking about?"

"Oh no, you don't remember leaping?" Al smacked his hand to his forehead.

"No," Sam replied, shaking his head, "I don't know how to explain this, Al, but I can't seem to remember much. I don't know who I am, or what I'm doing here!"

"It's alright, Sam, calm down!" Al raised his hands and tried to be reassuring. "You still remember me?"

"I...I think so. I work for you, right?"

Al bit his lip and closed his eyes. "Uh...sure, Sam. You work for me." Another lie. Old habits die hard. He reasoned with himself that Sam wouldn't remember the lie soon anyway. What mattered right now was making sure Sam didn't get himself committed or fail this leap, both of which were distinct possibilities at the moment.

"Why are you dressed so funny?" Sam eyed Al's silver Jacket, checkered shirt, and leopard print tie. It was the same thing he'd worn when he saw Sam the night before, which was earlier in the day for Al. Still, it did clash with the early 70s attire the people nearby were wearing, making Al stick out like a sore thumb. It wasn't him they were staring at, however, because he was invisible to everyone but Sam, who appeared to be speaking to thin air.

"Uh, well, because, uh..." The handlink bleeped, and Al removed it from his jacket, his eyes bugging out when he read the screen. "Uh-oh!"

"What is that thing?" Sam asked in confusion, staring at the strange block of lights in his hands. He didn't notice the policeman approaching, but a panicked Al did.

"Never mind that, Sam! What I need you to do is stop talking to me, and tell that officer that's coming over that you're on your way home."

"But I don't know where that is."

"I'll show you, but you need to stop talking to me _right now_."

"Excuse me, sir," the officer said cautiously to Sam, eyeing his pajamas, "Is everything alright here?"

Sam didn't look away from Al, now even more bewildered, "What are you talking about?"

"Sir?"

"I'm having a conversation here," said Sam over his shoulder, slightly annoyed.

"I'm serious, Sam," Al said sternly, "If you keep talking to me, they're gonna put you away _tonight_!"

"Put me away?" Sam repeated, shocked, "Am I going crazy?"

Immediately, Al's finger flew to his lips. "Shh! Don't use the 'c' word around Officer Yoyo here!"

"Who are you talking to?" the officer questioned, staring at the empty space in front of Sam.

"Who do you think I'm talking to?" asked Sam as if it were obvious, squinting in bafflement.

"There's no one there, sir."

"What are you talking about? He's right here!" Sam motioned toward Al. When his hand should have hit his chest, instead it went through it.

Sam's eyes were huge. His hand passed right through him. _His hand passed right through him._ That wasn't possible! Because if he wasn't really there, then he really was crazy. Had Al ever been real? Sam didn't know anymore. In fact, Sam might not even be his name after all. All he knew what that his hand had just phased through a man he was sure was real, and now he wasn't sure of anything anymore.

If he wasn't a man, he might be the boogieman. And the boogieman started to fade in and out.

"Sam-"

"S-Stay away from me! Both of you!" shouted Sam, or whoever he was, and he took off down the street.

"SAAAAAM!" Al yelled frantically, but the images around him were disappearing into blue. The last thing he saw was the officer chasing after his friend.

He ran as hard and as long as he could, until no one was chasing him, until he was sure the boogieman was gone. No, that was just silly, a boogieman. He knew Al, or at least he had known an Al, and maybe he had conjured him up in his mind because he'd known him before. But then that still meant he was seeing things that weren't there, and that was troubling.

Rubbing his temples and catching his breath, he was startled when he saw his reflection in a store window. An unfamiliar reflection stared back at him. No, that wasn't right. Even with no memory of himself, he knew that wasn't him. He stared at his hands, at his white skin, and then back at the brown skin in the reflection, the man with a heavier body than his muscular build. When he moved, so did the man in the window. But that wasn't him! It wasn't!

First he'd invented a man in a silver jacket with a noisy block of lights in his hand, now someone else's reflection. And although everything around him seemed to be from the early 70s, he was certain for some reason that it was 1999. So either the world had gone back in time, or he was from the future, and both ideas were absurd impossibilities. As scared as he was to admit it, he needed help.

Help. The institute. That meant something.

He'd find answers there.

"Ziggy, you fix the signal now!" Al barked at the ceiling of the Imaging Chamber, "Or Sam's going to end up in a padded room somewhere!"

"I've been attempting to reestablish contact since the signal broke, Admiral Calavicci," Ziggy stated, "There's no need to tell me to do so. In the meantime, it seems you've caused Dr. Beckett to change history again. Now he doesn't get committed to an institution."

"Really?" Al asked in surprise, "Well that's one problem fixed..."

"Yes. Now there's a 95% chance that Miguel Rivera is killed in the fire at the Howell Scientific Institute."

"Shit!"

"You can say that again, Admiral."

Joseph wasn't sure where he was going, only that he needed to be far away from the home where his life was crumbling apart. He was angry, but more than that he was scared. He couldn't bear to see his father's mind slip away from him, or his mother's heartbreak. Worse than all that, there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. Sniffling, he kicked a can down the street.

"Well what do we have here? A crybaby?" A voice came from nearby, and Joseph whipped around to see another young man leaning against a wall. He knew his name was Ernesto and he was part of a local gang; Joseph had spoken to him a few times, but he was older than him and his parents had warned him to stay away. Saving face, Joseph wiped his nose with his sleeve and straightened up.

"It's allergies."

"Sure," Ernesto chuckled, "Joseph, right? Nice kicks, man." He looked down his nose at Joseph's worn sneakers, one of which was so bad his toe was sticking out of a hole in the front.

Joseph shuffled his feet self-consciously. "Yeah, that's my name."

"You, uh, interested in making some extra cash, Joey?" Ernesto said smoothly, raising an eyebrow, "It could get you a lot of new shoes..."

Joseph knew this kid was bad news, and that his parents had told him to leave him alone. But he also knew that this was the opportunity he was looking for, and he couldn't pass it up. "How _much_ cash?"

The Howell Scientific Institute. How could he remember the name of this place and not his own? He didn't even remember how he got here. He simply was. All he knew is this was where he needed to be. Someone needed his help.

His help? Help from what?

All he, whoever he was, could hear were the echoes of his feet in the empty hallway. There was nobody here, much less someone who needed his help. And how could he help them when he was the one who was so lost? He was barely able to keep his shaking legs moving.

"H-Hello?" he called out, "Is anybody here?" No one answered.

Tentatively, he ventured further inside. Unnoticed by him, smoke began to drift down the hallway.

"Damn it, Ziggy, get me back there!" Al shouted at the ceiling, but Ziggy had decided to stop answering him. The door of the Imaging Chamber slid open, causing him to yell in frustration. "Son of a bitch! Didn't I tell everyone to stay out of here until the signal is reestablished? How's Ziggy supposed to center me on Sam with the door open like that?"

Donna was calm in her response. "Al, we need to talk."

"Now?" he asked in disbelief, "In case you haven't noticed, we're in the middle of a crisis here!"

"Yes, that's why we need to talk."

"Well what is it?" Al sighed, impatient to get back to Sam.

Donna slid the door down behind her to give them some privacy. Not that it did much good, since the Imaging Chamber was monitored from outside. Not to mention, Donna had discussed this with the others before coming in. Still, she felt this needed to be a more personal conversation, because what she was about to say wasn't easy.

The meaning behind the closed door was not lost on Al. Now he was worried. "Donna?"

"We think we figured out how to reverse what the retrieval program did."

"You did?" Al asked in confusion, "Isn't that supposed to be good?"

Donna folded her arms nervously. "It is; it's very good, but..." She paused to take a deep breath. "It's a gradual process, Al. We're not going to have enough time to restore him before the fire."

Al let out his breath in relief. "Is that all? Hell, Sam doesn't need his memories for _that_! _I'll_ help him complete the leap!"

Before he'd even finished, Donna was shaking her head. "He _can't_ complete the leap, remember? If Sam leaps before we restore his memories, we'll lose contact with him permanently!"

The realization hit Al like a Mack truck. Nothing like being stuck between a rock and a hard place. Dejectedly, he said, "So what you're saying is, he either dies in a fire, or we lose contact with him forever."

"You can still save him from the fire."

"If I get him out of there with those doctors, he leaps and we lose 'em!"

"Then don't save the doctors."

Al had to do a double take. "What?"

"If Sam doesn't complete his objective, then there's a chance he won't leap," Donna reasoned slowly, trying not to let her fear show, "He would stay as Miguel, and that would buy us enough time to...to fix the retrieval program properly...and bring him home." Tearfully, she looked at Al imploringly and placed a hand on his arm. "Get him away from the institute, without Dr. Gregory or Dr. Bergman."

"Are you telling me you want me to fail this leap on purpose?" Al asked incredulously.

"That's exactly what I'm saying."

"You're talking about letting a man live the rest of his life extra crispy and another man die!"

"I'm talking about letting _Sam_ live!" Donna snapped back, "I won't lose him, Al! We made this mess, now we're going to get him out of it! Do you understand me?"

It's not as if Al hadn't killed anyone before, but it had always been in self-defense or combat. He was no angel, but he wasn't a cold-blooded murderer either, nor did it seem right to make Sam an unwitting accessory to the crime. But...Donna was right. Damn it, she was right. There was always a line that could never be crossed, and that line was Sam.

Resigning, Al sighed. "Okay. Soon as the signal is reestablished...I'll get him away from the institute." He swallowed, then added. "I'll get him back, Donna."

In all fairness, Dr. Gregory had died in the original history, so they weren't changing something that hadn't already been done. It wasn't _really_ murder. The only other options involved losing Sam in some fashion, which meant that there were no other options. Besides, how many people had Sam saved over the years? He deserved to live just as much as any of them. One life for his seemed like more than a fair trade.

So then why did Al feel so damn guilty?


	5. Chapter 5

The mystery man awoke on the floor in a coughing fit. He remembered having a terrible headache, and then he was on the floor...God, what was happening? And why was he coughing?

Smoke! The hallway was filled with smoke!

As he got up, he covered his mouth and nose and attempted to breathe through the sleeve of his pajamas. Wait, why was he wearing pajamas in the middle of...wherever this was? There was no time to figure this out. He was finding it increasingly difficult to see, and his head was making him dizzy. Stumbling to the end of the hall, he opened the door, only to be met with a wall of flame. Screaming, he staggered back from the heat, the fire licking the walls and starting to surround the hallway.

Not that way. _Not that way._

"Help!" he screamed, though it made his throat burn, "Somebody help me! Please!"

He couldn't see past the fire now, nor could he see another exit. A new wave of pain surged through his head and he fell to his knees, clutching his skull.

"STOP IT! JUST STOP IT!"

Just when he thought he was alone, a voice shouted down the hallway.

"Sam! Sam, over here!"

Sam? Sam...he was Sam! He _remembered_ that! But who was calling him? Looking up, he squinted through the smoke. Astonishingly, out of the flames came a flickering figure, unaffected by the wall of fire. It was as if he were exiting from hell itself, coming to consume him. The face...Sam remembered the face, the lines around his mouth as he was laughing at him, his hand constricting his throat, the two of them spinning around and around in circles, tearing the room apart, the very fabric of reality itself collapsing around them. This was no man.

 _"Who gave you the right to go bungling around in time, putting right what I made wrong?"_

Sam covered his head and pleaded. "No! No, stay away from me! Leave me alone!"

"Sam?" the figure asked, fading in and out, "Sa...s...me, Al! I...r frie...r...mber?"

What he was saying didn't make any sense. Maybe none of this was real. Maybe Sam had died and he was being punished in Hell for some horrible sin. This was his sentence, and he was facing his gatekeeper.

"God, please forgive me!" Sam pleaded, "Whatever I did, I'm sorry! I don't remember! I don't remember!"

"Goosh...iggy to...signal!" The figure named Al flickered again, and then became clearer. When he stepped up closer to Sam, he cowered away from him until the wall prevented him from cowering further. "Sam," the figure continued, "you need to listen to me. I'm your friend and I'm here to help you."

"You walked through that fire! You're-You're some kind of demon!"

"Ouch!" gasped the apparition, clutching his chest, "I know your memory's gone, but that still hurts. Do you see any horns on me? I'm not a demon, I'm a hologram!" A beat. "...which might sound a little nutso to you, but it happens to be true. You're a time traveler, and I'm tuned into your mind from the future. Any of this ringing any bells yet?"

Holograms? Time travel? If this was Hell, it was a lot more surreal than Sam was expecting. And yet...As ludicrous as all of it sounded...he felt in his heart that it was true. Which either meant that the impossible was possible, or he really had lost it.

"Come on, I know it's in there," the hologram insisted, "Tell me...tell me about your string theory! Yeah, remember that?"

String theory. That _did_ sound familiar. Something else hovered near the edge of Sam's mind. A name.

"Janice..."

"Huh?"

Sam concentrated hard. "I...I remember someone named Janice. At a pool hall?"

"Jan! Right!" Al yelped in excitement, punching the air, "That's right, and that's when you decided to tell me about your string theory! You said that's when you realized you could trust me with anything. Sam, you remember!"

"No," Sam coughed, causing Al to deflate a little. He narrowed his eyes at the hologram in the strange clothes, studying him closely. "But...for some reason, I do feel like I can trust you."

Al should have felt proud, but hearing that felt like a metaphorical wrench to the gut. That persistent voice of conscience in the back of his mind was screaming, screaming because he was about to break that trust. He wished they had another option, but, he reminded himself, it was for Sam's own good. Wasn't it?

Coughing again, Sam held out his hand to him. "Help me up, will you?"

"Uh, Sam..."

"Oh. You're a...hologram." It felt strange to say. Sam got to his feet. "Do you...do you really know the future?"

"I sure do, and I can tell you that if you don't get out of here quick, you're gonna end up charcoal!"

"I can't see anything," Sam wheezed, wiping soot from his eyes.

"Don't worry about it; I'll lead the way. Let's get moving, quick quick quick!" Al stomped ahead and waved Sam forward, but Sam stayed in place.

"I'm here for some reason though..." he said, thinking, "Something I haven't done yet...Is...is there anyone else in the building?"

There it was. Sam, with those big green eyes, asking Al exactly the question he didn't want to answer. He felt like he was aiming a shotgun at Bambi. Although the smoke didn't affect him, he cleared his throat.

"Uh, no, there's no one else," Al said quietly. He turned his back to him; he couldn't look at Sam while he said it. Instantly, Sam knew.

"There _are_ people here, aren't there?" Sam asked, "And you don't want to tell me because I'll get hurt, or killed or something, is that it?"

Well, sort of. Kind of. In the long run, maybe. Al put on his best poker face, spinning to face him and using his admiral voice, "It doesn't matter, Sam. You don't have time. You're gonna follow me out _now_."

Defiantly, Sam stayed rooted to the spot, his feet planted firmly on the ground. "I'm not leaving without them."

"You _have_ to, Sam!"

"No! I have to try to save them!" Sam yelled with conviction, "So what if it gets me killed? If I left here knowing I could've saved someone else...I couldn't live with myself anyway. Now are you going to help me find them, or am I going to go looking alone?"

Al looked into Sam's determined eyes and he knew, he just knew, there was no swaying him. Of course there wasn't, because Sam was time's Boy Scout, and he'd give up his own life for someone else's in a heartbeat. That's what he thought he was doing now. Even without most of his memories, he was still Sam, and he always would be.

If Sam saved them, he would leap, and Al would never see him again.

He could still lie. Sam couldn't see anything without a guide, and Al could tell him he would lead him to the others, but instead take him to the exit. By the time Sam knew any different, the leap would have failed anyway. Al knew from the records that the fire department would already be there, and Sam wouldn't be able to go back in. He could still keep Sam, and all he had to do was lie. Tell him to go left, away from the others and toward the exit. Go left.

Throat tight, Al swallowed, licked his lips, and closed his eyes tight. "Go right, Sam."

Pulling his head out of the wall, Al turned and yelled, "This way; the hallway's clear!" He beckoned toward Sam, who stumbled near-blind through the smoke. Sam pushed through the door as Al continued into the next hallway.

Just what Al was afraid of seeing. Flames surrounded Dr. Gregory's office, where inside, of course, was Dr. Gregory. There was no way in except through that fire. Al pushed some buttons on the handlink, popping back over to Sam.

"How much further?" Sam coughed, peering at him through his stinging eyes.

"Dr. Gregory's office is in that next hallway, but there's fire all around it. There's no way you're gonna get through that."

"Is there a window?"

"A window? Yeah, there's-Oh! Good thinking, Sam! This way!"

Following the sound of Al's voice, Sam found the window at the end of the hall, opening it and stepping out onto the ledge. The fresh air felt wonderful against his skin, but his relief was short-lived when he looked down.

"Oh boy!" Stricken with fear, he closed his eyes and flattened himself against the wall. His slippers didn't grip the edge well, making his position precarious at best.

"Careful, Sam! That's a long drop."

Sam nearly had a panic attack when he opened his eyes to see his new friend floating in thin air. "Ah! Don't do that!"

"Don't do what?" Al looked down, only just realizing where he was standing. "Oh. I'm a hologram; I'm not gonna fall. You just focus on getting over to Dr. Gregory's office."

"A-Am I af-fraid of heights?"

"Terrified of 'em."

"Why didn't you tell me?!" Sam hissed angrily.

"You didn't ask," replied Al, "Besides, this is _your_ plan, remember? Now slide over to your right; the window's just a few feet away. Yeah that's it, nice and easy."

Slowly, uneasily, Sam inched his way across and found the other window, climbing into the smoky inferno once more. He was torn between relief at being on solid ground again and fear of being burned alive.

"Dr. Gregory?" he called out.

"Sam! He's over here!" Al yelled, "Looks like he's banged his head real bad."

Sam made his way toward Al's voice and found Dr. Gregory on the floor with a big bruise on his head. He shook him by the shoulders. "Dr. Gregory, wake up! We need to get out of here!"

Groaning, the other man opened his eyes. "Ugh...Miguel?"

"Uh...that's me," Sam shrugged. "You hit your head, and there's a fire."

"He...he hit me!" Dr. Gregory exclaimed, furious, "That jackal!"

"Who hit you?" Sam and Al asked in unison.

"Dr. Bergman! He told me that grant was his, and he hit me over the head! He...he tried to kill me!"

Al squinted a suspicious eye at Sam. "And how much you wanna bet this fire wasn't a result of faulty wiring?"

"Is he still here?" Sam asked both Al and Dr. Gregory.

Al was astonished. "You can't be thinking of trying to save that dog after what he did!"

"I don't know..." Dr. Gregory answered truthfully, rubbing his head.

"Follow me and I'll get you both out," Sam said, directing a pointed look at Al as he helped Dr. Gregory up.

Al nodded. "Gooshie, center me on Dr. Bergman!" He popped out for a moment, then reappeared. "He's just a couple hallways down, Sam! He got knocked out by a burning beam." Then he muttered sardonically, "He should know that if you play with fire, you're gonna get sizzled."

Sam nodded his thanks, grinning slightly despite himself, and he and Dr. Gregory started climbing out the window.

Taking a deep breath, Al had to wait for a moment to collect himself. If this was the last time he ever saw Sam, he didn't want his friend to see tears in his eyes.

"I just don't get it," uttered Al in befuddlement, "You should be leaping!"

Not that he wasn't immensely relieved. Just baffled. Maybe once, just once, some cosmic force had given them a break. Sam sat on the back of the ambulance, a blanket wrapped around him and an oxygen mask in place. He moved it to speak to Al. "That means I did what I came here to do, right? What happens to them?"

Placing his cigar in his mouth, Al took out the handlink and checked. "Well, Dr. Bergman goes to jail for arson and attempted murder, but thanks to you, he only suffered minor injuries in the fire. He's rehabilitated and gets out in 8 years for good behavior." He huffed and muttered, "If you ask me, it's too good for him."

"And Dr. Gregory?"

"Well he, uh...huh," a smile crept onto Al's face as he read the next part, "You're gonna love this, Sam. As thanks for saving him in the fire, Dr. Gregory sets Miguel up with an internship once the institute is running again. Miguel finishes high school while he's interning, and now he works with Dr. Gregory on his research!" But as he continued to read, his smile faded. "Oh."

"Oh what?" Sam asked in concern.

"He, uh, doesn't continue his work on biological microchips," Al told him in disappointment, "Looks like Ziggy is going to be made as-is."

This was familiar enough to Sam. Since the fire, more of his memories had returned to him, but he still wasn't all there yet. His headache reminded him that it was still an ongoing process. However, he knew what Dr. Gregory's original research could have meant for him, and a part of him pained at the missed opportunity.

"On the bright side," Al continued, more upbeat, "He and Miguel instead focus on making more affordable computers for the mass market, particularly to provide to schools and underprivileged students." He bounced on the balls of his feet and gave Sam an encouraging nod. "They do a lot of good, Sam."

Suddenly, Sam didn't feel so bad about his own misfortune. He grinned. "That's great news. Oh, and, um...Thanks for helping me get them out."

Ashamed at his original intentions, Al shook his head and dismissed him. "It was nothing."

"It wasn't." Sam smiled gratefully, and Al felt a little less guilty. Sam furrowed his brows. "Uh...what was your name again?"

Al sighed. Not quite there yet. "Call me Al."

"Only if you call me Betty."

"Betty?" Al repeated in exasperation, "No, your name is Sam, Sam Beck..." He trailed off when he saw Sam biting back a grin, and the stupid joke finally hit him. He rolled his eyes. "You can't remember me, and _that_ song you remember?"

Sam laughed, but that sent him into another coughing fit, so he put the oxygen mask back on. Al was distracted by the handlink shrieking at him. His eyes went wide, "Uh-oh! Sam, we've got trouble!" Sam looked at him inquiringly, and he read the screen. "I think I figured out why you didn't leap. In 56 minutes, Joseph Rivera is killed in a drug deal gone bad!"

Sam ripped off the oxygen mask. "Where?"

Joseph gulped and twisted nervously at the sleeve of his shirt. He wondered what his parents would think of what he was doing. Well, he wasn't _using_ the cocaine, he was just making the delivery. That wasn't so bad. Ernesto had promised him part of the cut once the deal went down, and he could use that money to help his family. He was doing this for the right reasons. And so he waited in a dark alley for the buyer to show up.

Instead, he saw his father, dressed in ash-covered pajamas and looking in poor shape, running toward him.

"Joseph!" Sam stopped and coughed. He wasn't in the best state for running.

"Dad!" Joseph gasped, "What are you doing here? What happened to you?"

"I'm here," Sam panted, "to stop you from...making the biggest mistake...of your life..."

"Take it easy, Sam," a concerned Al told him, "You breathed in a lot of smoke back there."

Sam waved him off. "I'm fine."

"Who are you talking to?" Joseph asked, staring in Al's direction.

"No one. Joseph, I know what you're doing, and you don't want this."

"How could you know what I'm doing?"

"Because...I just do."

Joseph's face hardened. "Yeah, right. You don't know anything right now."

"I know more than you think," said Sam. Suddenly, his head started pounding and he winced and grabbed his temples.

"Sam, you okay?" Al asked.

"Yeah, just another headache..."

"You don't look so good."

"Just stay quiet, okay, Al?" Sam snapped. He didn't need more noise in his head.

"You're going crazy!" Joseph snapped, "You're forgetting things and-and talking to invisible people!"

"I'm not crazy," Sam grimaced, and he composed himself as best he could. "I know things are bad right now, but you're going down a worse path. Drugs aren't the way to escape your problems."

"I'm not doing drugs, Dad."

"But you're selling them."

"I'm trying to make money for you and Mom!" yelled Joseph defensively, "All I have to do is make the trade. I'm just the messenger. See, I'm not even really involved."

Sam became angry now. "But you are involved! And that's going to get you killed!"

"It won't get me killed, Dad! Don't you see? If I don't do anything, no one will." Joseph bit his lip bitterly. "No one cares about us! We don't matter!"

Sam placed his hands on the young man's shoulders. "Everyone matters, but what someone else thinks of you isn't important. You are not defined by the people around you; you define you. And who do you think you are tonight?"

Joseph looked downcast, staring at the paper bag in his hands. Setting his jaw in determination, he tossed the bag aside.

Sam grinned and patted him proudly. "That's my boy."

 _Click._

The man looking for the delivery didn't seem to find this situation as touching as they did, nor did he seem intent on keeping his end of the deal. He aimed a gun at them.

"Gimme the drugs, man!"

Joseph was too terrified to say anything. Sam edged slowly toward the bag. "Whatever you say..."

"Watch it, Sam," Al warned, "You don't wanna end up with any extra holes you don't need."

" _Thanks_ ," Sam hissed sarcastically through the side of his mouth.

Just as Sam was handing the bag over, Joseph took a nervous step back, tripping on his own feet. The movement startled the gunman, who aimed his piece at the fallen teenager.

"SAM!

In a split second, Sam dove on top of Joseph, covering him with his body. Al turned and covered his eyes.

"FREEZE! POLICE!"

"Huh?" Al spun around and saw two officers at the end of the alley, their weapons aimed at the gunman. The man dropped the gun, raised his hands, and the officers were immediately there to cuff him.

A relieved Sam exhaled sharply. He looked over Joseph carefully. "You okay?"

"I-I think so," said Joseph unsteadily, "I'm so sorry!" He threw his arms around Sam and sobbed into his shoulder. "Oh, I love you, Dad!"

"I love you too, son," Sam murmured, and he stroked his head.

Watching the officers take away the gunman, Al wiped his brow and blew out a breath. "Jeez, Sam, that was a close one."

"What's my last name?"

"Calavicci."

"Good. And your home town?"

"Al..."

"This is important, Sam."

Sam sighed. "It's Elk Ridge, Indiana. Anything else you want to know? My high school's mascot? My favorite food?"

Al squinted in thought, then gave a sideways smirk. "When did you lose your virginity?"

"Al!"

"Yep, you're definitely back."

Sam gave Al a reproachful look, but his mood wasn't terribly dampened. Outside of being kept at the hospital for observation, everything seemed to have worked out this leap. Miguel's temporary amnesia had been written off as a symptom of extreme exhaustion, and Gabriela had been overjoyed to see he was okay after the fire. Joseph hadn't been implicated in the drug deal, and now he was in the hallway being simultaneously scolded and smothered by his mother. Not to mention, Sam's memories were back and his head was feeling miles better than it had since he'd arrived in 1973. Although, Sam noted, Al didn't seem in terribly great shape; he had bags under his eyes the size of saucers.

"You should get some sleep, Al," Sam suggested, "I'm fine now. Really."

"I'll rest when you finally leap," Al said stubbornly, "Until then, I'm not leaving your side." He puffed on his cigar, and that was that.

Sam peered out of the open door as Gabriela hugged her son, having an unheard conversation. "They're going to be okay, aren't they, Al?"

"Oh yeah," Al confirmed, "Looks like Joseph was scared straight tonight. He never gets involved with drugs again, and he graduates with his engineering degree. Miguel still gets the internship, and Gabriela even quits her waitressing job and opens a restaurant of her own. Yeah, they're real happy, Sam. And that's all thanks to you."

Taking in a deep breath, Sam watched them and smiled, staying silent for a long time. At last, he said, "I think you were wrong, Al."

"Wrong about what? That you helped them?"

"No, I mean before. When you said I was always me." Sam shifted his eyes toward his puzzled friend. "I don't think I'm the same person who stepped into that Accelerator Chamber. I mean, after everything I've done, how could I be?" He paused briefly for thought, then grinned proudly. "And you know what? I kind of like the person I am now."

Smiling warmly, Al tipped his head and said, "I kind of like him too, kid."

Sam's grin widened, and he was enveloped in blue.

Al exited the Imaging Chamber, placed the handlink into its spot on the console, and was met with the hard-nosed stare of Donna Eleesee-Beckett. She stood still, her arms folded across her chest.

"He could've been lost forever," she said sternly.

Al straightened his posture and squared his shoulders, equally immovable. "If I'd let him get someone killed, we would've lost him anyway."

"I know."

Al blinked. "You do?"

"You made the right choice." Donna revealed a hint of a smile, turned, and walked away.

Proudly, Al grinned to himself and twirled a cigar in his fingers. He'd done the right thing, and so had Sam. Placing the cigar between his lips, he realized that it didn't matter so much if he and Sam were different men, only that they were good men. And, at least today, they were.

Whistling to himself, he took a single skip, then sauntered jovially out of the Control Room.


End file.
